Exaction paper

QUIET

Next, those who embrace our way of life must clearly understand that as one of their first obligations is to enter into the hermit spirit, one of their main jobs must also be to practice the virtues which are proper to this spirit, the silence is one of the first and the main ones, since the retrenchment it makes from external conversation with creatures is one of the most powerful.

3* means that one can employ to prepare oneself for interior communication with God in prayer, who is like the soul and the life of this same solitary life.

It is for these reasons that our Mother Saint Thérèse established in our Order the use of several signs, so that we use them instead of words in the things we might have to say to each other more ordinarily. to each other. But we must be careful about two things: the first, that it is not up to each person to invent them as she thinks, but that we must use those which are in use in the monastery, and also take care to make them as distinctly and intelligible as possible, so as not to distract those to whom they are made; the second, that none should be done which is not necessary, because the true spirit of silence is hardly less contravened by useless signs than by useless words.

When we really need to speak, if two words can suffice, we must return this fidelity to God not to say three. And if it happens that we add some that are not [necessary], the first who notices it must prostrate humbly, and the other too, and then they will both get up at the same time. This is an ancient custom of the Order which our first Mothers who came from Spain to found in France observed exactly. We must not fear that this is against charity, nor to cause pain to her whom we humbly warn of her fault: for the same charity and the desire for the perfection of her sister being what makes her do it, God does not

4* will not allow her to receive any indisposition, and each one here has too much goodwill for that.

If a professed while going by the house, sees some sisters speaking in prohibited places, it must also prostrate in front of them, and then they will rise together, as it has just been said.

One must never speak in the cloisters, in the dormitories, and in all the following places: in the two choirs, in the oratory, in the chapter, in the refectory, in all the hermitages and in the gardens.

Not a nun can also speak in the novitiate, if not a few words, or at most in some necessity the space of a Miserere, except the Sub-Prioress, the Mistress of Novices, and the sister whom the Prioress in charge of helping to teach them to read, to sing, and to do the ceremonies.

You must not yet speak at all in all the passages or on the steps of the cells, and when you have something necessary to say, you must withdraw to a place where you are not seen, and speak so low that the 'one cannot be heard from anywhere else in the house, it being necessary that solitude and silence appear at all times and in all places in the monastery.

If a sister has permission to say something to another, before she begins to speak, she must make her understand that she has this permission.

In all the places where one can speak, one must take care to close the doors before saying the first word.

There must be no talking or working since Vespers are said until three o'clock strikes,

5* this time given by our holy mother Thérèse to read and to pray.

One must not sing in the cells or in the dormitories, except during recreation, when one has permission not to go there.

As soon as Compline is said, it is necessary to withdraw, so as not to walk in the dormitories during the great silence: which must also be observed at noon silence in summer.

For the time when we have leave to go to the garden after Compline, those who do not want to stay there all the time, can return to their cells.

At all times great care must be taken not to make noise in the dormitories or in your cell, and if you had to put nails in it or make any other noise, you would have to ask leave to take for that. recess time.

When closing doors and windows, care must always be taken to do so very gently.

During the time of the great silence and that of midday in summer, one must not at all knock, sweep, shake, or do any other thing that makes noise, anywhere in the house that can be heard.

In the morning when dressing and in the evening when going to bed, special care must be taken not to make any noise, and to go out and come in so quietly that one cannot be heard.

During the whole day each one must remain in his cell, or in the places where obedience orders him, from which he must not leave without necessity.

For that, it is necessary to plan in the morning the things that

6* one may need to ask or do during the day, and go there after a few hours of Community, and even try to do several at the same time, in order to make as few trips as possible will be able by the house.

WORK

The sisters must know that they are obliged to have a great fervor and a great assiduity in the work of the hands, not only as Religious, but also as daughters of Adam, remembering that after her sin God imposed on her as penance, and in him to all his posterity, to eat his bread by the sweat of his face.

Besides this obligation, the one they have to pay homage to the most holy life of Jesus Christ, commits them very closely to it, and for this they will remember that in his first thirty years he was continually occupied with manual work, and even hard work.

The holy Apostles were so faithful to this practice that Saint Paul even worked at night, after having employed the days in the preaching of the Gospel, and so expressly recommended this night work to the faithful that he wants those who do not do not work do not eat, as is reported in our Rule.

After the holy Apostles, the Anchorites and Solitaires, and the first Fathers who instituted Religious Orders such as Saint Basil, Saint Augustine, Saint Benedict and Saint Bernard, had this use in such great

7* recommendation, that they have established it in their Orders as one of the things most necessary to the perfection of the spirit.

And our holy Mother exhorts us to this and commands us to do so in such express words in her Constitutions, and in several other places in her works, that we cannot claim to have the honor of being her daughters if we let ourselves go to idleness.

In order therefore to avoid this evil, and to enjoy the advantages which are found in the accomplishment of a usage so holyly established, each must employ very faithfully all the time in which she is not in the Community, or occupied elsewhere by the obedience, to work with his hands in the place where it is withdrawn.

MODESTY AND MORTIFICATION OF THE SENSES

The sisters must take great care to regulate and compose their exterior as best they can, to honor that of Our Lord Jesus Christ and that of his most holy Mother.

They must always hold themselves very straight, and whether in speaking or walking, they must take care to say of the head, of the hands, or of the rest of the body, only the least movement that they can.

They must go through the house with a collected and very modest manner, without turning their heads, nor looking up to look at anything out of curiosity or lightness, and have their hands under their scapular, if [it was] not that they wore something that prevented them from doing so.

They must take care not to drag the

8* feet [and] to make so little noise while walking that they are not heard. Our Spanish Mothers were very exact in this practice, and highly recommended it.

When they are seated in their cells, or in their offices, although no one sees them, they should not be lying down, nor too crooked, or their legs too extended, but taking care that it is in an honest and modest, and which does not give too much comfort to the body, which must always be with religious mortification.

When they are at the sermon, either in the choir or in the parlour, they must take even more care to be modestly seated there, not to move, and not to turn their heads, and also to bow when the preacher addresses the Community, and when he names the holy names of Jesus and Mary.

If someone was asleep, whoever was behind or close to her would have to pull her out. He has been so ordained from time immemorial.

They should never complain of the small inconveniences that befall them, such as heat, cold, weariness, infirmities, and what pleasant and mortifying evil they may encounter in the things given to them for to eat it, to clothe it, and for the other necessities of human life.

Finally, the mortification of Jesus Christ must subjugate and regulate all their senses and all their interior and exterior movements, at all times, in all places and in all jobs, even the most painful.

9*

POVERTY

They must take extreme care not to appropriate anything, however small and vile it may be, and to have and desire for their use only those things which are precisely necessary, cutting off all those whose they may well pass: and yet in these same necessary things, there [are] none of them curious or too great a price, but that all feel the poverty of Jesus Christ. They must even take this care for the things of devotion which they are allowed to have.

They can only have one table and two pictures in their cells, or three pictures without a table.

One should only put five pins in his cap and in his under veil, namely two in the cap and three in the veil.

By this same spirit of poverty, they must be careful not to allow anything to be lost, broken or spoiled that can be of use, either in the offices, or in the hermitages, or in the other places of which they can be given care; as well as to keep their clothes to make them last as long as they can, and when something is broken, they must ask permission to show them to La Robière, so that she can give them what she will find something to mend them.

They must also ask leave to show their alpargates as soon as they are broken, to the one who has the care of mending them, and to make a point

10* to their sleeve, so as not to lose their handkerchief. When they go around the house, they have to carefully pick up everything they find that can be of any use, even if it is only a piece of wire. And when they sweep, they have to pick up all the little pieces of wood they find in the garbage, the very ones that break off their brooms.

These little practices of poverty are done in the Religion, to pay homage to those that the Son of God did when he deigned to make himself poor for our love.

OF OBEDIENCE

They must be very exact in all matters of obedience, and neglect none, however small it may seem to them, since all that they do, down to the least, is to honor and to imitate the practices of obedience. of the Son of God and of his holy Mother on earth.

When we order something in community, such as going to peel grass, help to fold linen, tighten wood, etc., not one should dispense with it without permission, although it was to go and do another something she would also think would be useful. And when a particular person is sent to do these same things, she must go with joy to have this opportunity to relieve her sisters.

If it happens that, in the things that are ordered to them, there is something about which they have difficulty or repugnance, they must be careful not to make it appear,

11* but rather they should rejoice in the means God offers them to break their own will.

When the table of offices is read in the refectory, each one must be blessed to have someone there, and take great care to discharge it as best as possible. Novices must ask their Mistress what to do for those who fall in their favor.

SIMPLICITY

Simplicity is one of the most necessary virtues in religious life, but especially for novices. They must not see, hear, or judge anything except in the spirit given to them.

When we ask them something, they have to answer with great simplicity and naivety. They should not want to know what is going on, not only outside but even inside the house, in order to take care of only what is necessary, remembering that God will not ask them to account for what that he has not committed to their care, but that he will ask for a very narrow one, if they lack simplicity, oblivion of all created things where he wants to find them.

RESPECT

OF THE RESPECT WE MUST SHOW, FIRST TO THE PRIORY,

AND THEN TO ALL THE SISTERS

One must [have] a deep interior and exterior respect for the Prioress, looking in her person to that of Jesus Christ; and be as exact in obeying everything

12* let her command only if the same Son of God commanded it with his own mouth.

When you meet her by the Convent, you have to stop five or six paces away, and make a deep bow to her.

You must always kneel down while speaking to her, and when she repeats some fault, you must prostrate yourself and hold on until she says or makes the sign that you get up.

You have to be very careful, as soon as the Prioress speaks to a sister, to withdraw so far away that you cannot hear anything, and if you cannot avoid hearing something, you should warn her. .

One can never enter the cells of the Prioress, the Sub-prioress or the Mistress of Novices in their absence, any more than those of all the other nuns. It is only the Prioress who can give permission to enter those of the Professed, but the Mistress of Novices can make them enter each other's cells, when necessary.

When the Mother Sub-prioress presides over the Community, no one should speak to her other than on her knees, and when she takes back a sister, she should prostrate herself.

The novices must observe with regard to the sub-prioress and [of] their Mistress, the same which was said in speaking of the Prioress, except that for their Mistress they must not do it to the Community.

Care must be taken never to speak lightly to a sister, but to always do so.

13* generally to all with a recollected way, and which testifies on the outside all together the respect that one has for them on the inside, following the advice of Saint Paul who says: warn each other out of honor.

When you meet a sister, you have to be very careful to greet her with a half bow, and if you find one passing through a door, you have to withdraw humbly to give her the preference, but if she does not want her to accept, after having withdrawn, it is necessary to pass very slowly and with confusion from the humility of his sister.

COMMUNITY HOURS, FIRST OF THE CHOIR

When the hours of Community strike, all the Sisters must go there, without any delay.

They must take off their sleeves and their dresses before entering the De Profundis, which they must also observe whenever they enter the choir, and again when they go to the oratory and the Blessed Sacrament is exposed there, at processions and at confession.

When we are at De Profundis between the strokes of the bell, one should not read there in any book or paper, because this time is given to collect his spirit, to raise him to God and to ask him for the grace to sing his praises with the deep respect and all the holy dispositions that are due to such a high majesty.

One must also observe the same of not reading in any

14* book or paper during the office, the Mass, the examination and the processions, except the books specific to what the Community must say there.

You can't show each other or give anything to each other without permission.

During the hours of office one must be very modest and recollected, and take great care not to raise one's eyes at all, and not to turn one's head, nor touch one's face, nor one's clothes.

You must also take care not to show your hands or your feet.

We must bow down when we name the holy names of Jesus and Mary, and those of our Father Saint Elijah, of our Mother Saint Thérèse and of the saint whose office we perform. (1. Successive decrees of the Sacred Congregation of Rites have prescribed some other inclinations which are indicated in the Ceremonial).

When you sing, always hold your book and look into it, never say anything by heart.

When you are reciting, you can leave your book at the Benedictus, and at the Hours from the chapter, but the white novices are not allowed to leave it at anything, except at Compline when they are recite.

Do not fail to bring your Diurnal to grace (2. The Diurnal can currently be replaced by the Book of Graces which has been printed for this purpose), when it is another psalm than the Wretched who says it.

Care should be taken not to make any noise at all during the service, especially when a

15* Religious alone says something that all the others must hear. One must not close the clasps of one's book, nor turn the pages.

The same must be observed when making the signs to the choir and to the De Profundis.

Coughing, spitting and blowing your nose in the choir should be avoided as much as possible. When you have to, you have to try to do it very gently, and if you can't help making noise, you have to kiss your scapular to get out of the choir, and move far enough away to not be heard, first out of respect for Our Lord Jesus Christ present on the Altar, and secondly so as not to divert one's sisters from paying attention to prayer, which one must hold dear.

When the Blessed Sacrament is exposed in the oratory, one cannot say his office there without permission, except during the hours that the Community says it to the choir.

When, in other times, it is devotional to say vocal prayers there, it must be done so quietly that no one hears it: which must also be observed in the choir and in other places of devotion, except that we were alone.

Particular care should be taken not to make any noise during Mass, especially during the Epistle and the Gospel, and when getting up to go to Communion.

When the Prioress gives permission to take Communion during Mass, she also has to go and fetch her coat.

All must put it on after the offertory at the 16th masses where they have not put it on from the beginning, and the white novices must put on their little veil at the same time.

We must line up to take communion after the second Domine non sum dignus.

The thanksgiving must last a quarter of an hour since the Mass is over.

When Mass has begun, if it is low, one must not enter the choir without permission, and if one has to take communion, one enters the Confiteor; but at sung Masses, one enters to help with one's voice.

It is up to the cantors to put the desks in front of the Mass, and to remove them after it is over, but they must do so in such a way that they do not stop going in and out with the Community.

When None is sung, it is up to the second cantor to put them on, and she goes out to take them from the brief responses.

When you have some office in the choir, you must be very careful to perform it, and plan every day what you have to say, so as not to fail.

When one is obliged to leave the Community, one must warn the one who had the same office the week before to fill in.

When some fault has been made there which could be seen from the outside, at the end of the service it is necessary to prostrate oneself on the cross under the bells (1. The bells, at Saint Joseph-d'Avila, are placed above above the choir, not far from the altar, which explains this passage and indicates where one must prostrate oneself. In some other monasteries, at Albe for example, the bells are also above the choir), and wait at rise that the one who presides has made the sign.

17* When one arrives at the choir after the service has begun, namely: at Matins the Come on, at the Hours the hymn, at Vespers the first psalm, and at Compline when it was said Adjutorium nostrum (1. The Ceremonial drafted, as explained by our superiors, to regulate in a definitive manner and to make uniform the practice of our monasteries, gives the general rule for all the offices, to go to prostrate only when one enters after the first psalm started), it is necessary to go and kiss the ground under the bells and not to rise until the one who presides has made the sign.

Before kissing the earth, we make on his forehead, on his mouth and on his stomach, a cross with his thumb, saying Per signum crucis etc... then a large sign of the cross on oneself, which is also observed every time one enters the choir for the office, before the one who presides makes the sign to begin, and again at the examination and prayers.

Whenever the Regulations for the Ceremonies of the Nuns oblige them to kiss the earth, they must indeed kiss it, and not content themselves with half prostrating themselves, but only on the days that they have communicated, from Mass until in the refectory, they must put their scapular under their mouth out of respect for the Blessed Sacrament.

Every time one enters the choir, one must make a deep bow (3. The rules of the Church prescribe genuflexion to salute the Blessed Sacrament) and kiss the ground.

18* Novices may not at any time stand closer to the gate than two paces, and when the Blessed Sacrament is exposed and the choir gate is open, they must not approach closer than about half of the choir.

They should never touch the grilles, nor put themselves under the curtains, even of the small choir (In several monasteries in Spain, there are two choirs: the large one in which the office is said, and another smaller one.)

You must not prostrate yourself on the cross in the choir when the gate is open and the shutters are closed; and when you do it, either in the choir or in the hermitages, you must always put your scapular under your mouth, because otherwise the breath stains the wood.

One cannot remain thus prostrate longer than the length of a Wretched. You should also not get too close to the paneling for the same reason of not making stains.

One should not leave the Community without asking the Prioress or the one who presides in her absence.

When one has left for something necessary, one cannot go and do another, nor stop precisely at what one had leave to go out for.

When one is out of the Community by illness, by remedies, or for some business, one should not go in these hours by the house, nor in the garden, except in the hours of recreation.

Every day after Compline, everyone must return

19* to the choir to whisper one The Creator came for all those who recommended themselves to the prayers of the Community that day, and then a Sancta maria or a Subtuum to the Blessed Virgin for all those who are dying and who must die the following night.

When one is not in morning prayer, one is three days without getting up [to go there] and without prostrating oneself at the office, and on the first day, one kisses one's scapular to ask permission, and for at the same time we must sit down for evening prayer, according to the need we have, one more than the other.

You shouldn't go to the choir after Compline if you think you can't help sleeping there.

FOR BELLS

Those who have the bell must come a little after three quarters before the hours of Community, and wait in the choir for the clock to strike (1. We remember that in several monasteries in Spain, the bells are above the choir. In St Joseph of Avila, one of them is sounded in the choir itself, the other in a small corridor at the entrance of the choir; in Albe, they are both sounded in the choir. This makes it clear why it is said to wait in the choir for the clock to strike, and to remain there between the strokes of the bells, as we will see later).

At the Hours, at Vespers and at Matins, the great bell must be rung, ringing the length of a Wretched, then you have to leave two apart, then ring the little bell, at the Hours the length of a Wretched, at Vespers and Matins, a good De Profundis.

The first stroke of the Mass is sounded with the large 20 * bell the length of a Wretched, and it is the sacristans who sound the other two bells.

For the evening prayer we ring it twice Wretched (1. The ringing of the Hours and the ringing of the evening prayer are a little longer than indicated by the Ceremonial, which the layout of the premises can make useful in certain monasteries), and the great bell is also rung during the Te Deum.

When two strokes are rung at Vespers and Matins, only one Miserere space should be left between the strokes, and the little bell rung once. Wretched. For Compline, for the silence after, for the end of the morning recreation and for the Lesson hour in Lent, the little bell is rung the length of a De Profundis (2. The length of a De Profundis is equivalent to thirty strokes, as we see from the Ceremonial and from ancient manuscripts, which also use one or other of these indications to designate the ringing of the same exercise).

For the end of the hour of Lesson at three o'clock, for the examination after Matins, and afterwards for the Retreat it is tolled only twelve strokes (3. The Ceremonial indicates thirty strokes).

For the morning prayer, after the three little strokes of the Angelus, the great bell is rung the length of two Wretched ; at noon and at six o'clock in the evening, it is rung for a De Profundis after the small blows.

She who has the bell must not leave the choir between the strokes, except to go to the De profundis take her book, but she has no time off to stop at anything else.

When two small knocks are sounded in a row, the Community must assemble in choir. The way

21* to ring for this is to ring twice twelve times with the little bell, leaving between two a sancta apart.

For the end of the midday silence in summer, the truncheon is sounded, and it is the one who has the bell who takes care of it.

FOR THE STAMP

When the bell is rung three times three double strokes, leaving between one and the other a Ave Maria, all the nuns must go to the chapter, but when these three double knocks are only rung twice, it is only for those who belong to the chapter and the others do not have to go.

You have to be very careful to answer the bell that calls the Sisters, when it rings to summon someone; and when you go to places where you can't hear it, you have to pull your rope at the little table to mark where you will be, or tell the portress, and if it's the At the time when confessions are made, the sacristan must also be notified. At this time, one should not go away unnecessarily to a place where one cannot hear the bell; and those who, through their own fault, fail to reply, having been rung twice, will not go to confession the next day and will lose communion.

OF THE CHAPTER

One must in the chapter state one's faults so clearly that all can hear.

The novices must not pass in front of the 22* chapter when it is held and they are no longer there.

When one of the professed novices is semainer or cantor, she must ask the sub-prioress to have the prayers said at the end of the chapter replaced for her.

When you arrive after the reading has begun, you have to prostrate yourself in the middle of the chapter until the Prioress has made the sign, but if the reading is not over, you have to wait until she is.

If on entering one found that the Prioress was talking to all the Sisters in common, or to someone in particular about her faults, one should stop near the door until she had finished her speech, in order to not to interrupt her.

FROM THE REFECTORY

Between the two strokes of the little bell that is rung at the entrance to the table, all the Sisters owe themselves a great deal of humiliation to be obliged to perform these actions of drinking and eating which are common to them with the animals, and then they will rise to God, taking some of the thoughts and practices that the Saints have taught us for this, such as uniting themselves with the holy dispositions of Jesus Christ Our Lord, who deigned to lower himself to the point of do these same actions, give him thanks for his willingness to provide poor creatures such as they are with what is necessary for them to live, although they have deserved all abandonment by their sins.

To propose to abstain from something which will be 23* most to their taste, and to take more willingly what will be less so, remembering the gall and the vinegar, with which the same Son of God was quenched on the cross .

Remember also that Our Lord is pleased to communicate from this life onwards the sweetness of his spirit, to souls who willingly deprive themselves for love of Him of the satisfactions of their senses.

When the second stroke of the little bell has been rung, each must make the sign of the cross over herself and over her bread, and kiss it, blessing God, before cutting it (1. The Ceremonial indicates to first kiss the bread then, to make the sign of the cross on oneself). It is also done on its bucket in front than to drink the first time It must be held with both hands.

They will always have their eyes lowered and fixed in front of them, without turning their heads, and without looking at the others, nor at what they are being served, and when the waitress presents them with the portions, they will bow their heads and body, and they will take what is most at hand without any choice

They will take care to stand straight, leaning neither on the table nor on the wall, and that their feet are withdrawn under their clothes without putting them on top of each other, and their hands under the scapular, in front of and after the meal.

They should also observe modesty in the way they eat, taking care not to do it noisily either too quickly or too slowly, taking care to have done with others.

Care must be taken not to put anything that can be eaten in the large dishes, and not to drop breadcrumbs on the floor. At the end of the meal, you must pick up all those on your napkin, in homage to what Our Lord ordered his apostles, after performing the miracles of the multiplication of the loaves, to pick up the remains, so that nothing was lost (John ch VI, 24).

We must remember not to put crumbs of bread in the portions which we do not want to eat whole, and to see to it that what remains of the bread and of the portions remains so clean that it cannot give cause for mortification. to those who will eat it.

You also have to be careful not to get your fingers and towel dirty as much as possible. One must wash one's spoon and knife, and in all things take great care of cleanliness.

When you fold your napkin, you have to put your bucket and everything else on it, as gently as you can on the table, so as not to make any noise that interrupts the reading, which is also necessary observe throughout the refectory.

When reading the table of offices, those who are named must bow.

If any sister enters after the reading has begun, she must prostrate herself in the middle of the refectory, and not rise until the one who presides has made the sign.

When one comes that the Community is no longer there, one must also prostrate, but one gets up without any sign, except that the Prioress or the Sub-prioress was present.

25*

MORTIFICATIONS IN THE REFECTORY

One says one's fault in the refectory of the things one has broken, carrying them around one's neck.

When through laziness one has lost the antiphon of the morning prayer, one carries one's pillow around one's neck, saying one's fault, and moreover, one loses the first communion.

Those who shed their lamp must confess their fault in the refectory, wearing it round their necks, and going eight days without lighting it.

One must not leave the choir to perform mortifications, more than six, three on each side.

There should never be more than two nuns kissing their feet at the same time, and even then they should not both begin to do so on the same side.

One should not perform several mortifications at the same meal, such as prostrating oneself at the door, and then returning to perform another one in the middle of the refectory. One should only perform one according to one's devotion, except that afterwards, we can dine ashore.

Care must be taken not to make them too long so that they do not cause the graces to be lost.

After making a mortification, you must go and kiss the scapular of the Prioress or the Sub-Prioress. In their absence, one does not kiss the one who presides, nor does one say one's fault.

One must never go and kiss the scapular while undressed, so that when one has to dine in this state, one does not kiss it at all.

26*

One never takes off one's robe, and when one dines in mortification without having one's great scapular, one must have the little one.

One should not kiss one's feet at the door, nor prostrate oneself there when there is some nun taking discipline.

When a Sister kisses her feet either at the door or around the tables, she should not be bothered to come forward very far for that, but she should gently present her foot.

And every time the Sisters make mortifications around the tables, those who are seated must make them a half bow when they begin, and another when they finish.

On the morning of the days when we received Communion, we do not kiss our feet, we do not prostrate ourselves at the door of the refectory so that the sisters pass over us, we take care not to put anything dirty in our mouths, and one does not put it on the ground without its scapular being between two.

The professed are allowed to make two mortifications of the ordinaries every week, but the white novices cannot make any without having asked their Mistress.

The white novices can make mortifications at the door and in the middle of the refectory while the sisters enter, but when one is seated, they can do no other than dine on the ground near their place.

They also cannot go and kiss the scapular since we are seated.

The semainer must not make any mortification 27* in the evening when it is fasting, and she must always take care not to commit herself to any that could prevent her from doing her office, the other officers must observe the same

There is no mortification in the refectory since the first Vespers of the feasts where the prioress does the office, nor [of] those of the second class which have an octave, but on Wednesday, Thursday and Good Friday are excepted from this rule, because they are particularly intended to pay homage to the humiliations of the Son of God.

They are not held from the morning service of the eve of Easter until after the octave. Also at Pentecost, from the morning service of the previous day until after the third feast.

The same is still observed at Christmas until after Kings.

They are not made on Sundays and feasts, nor even on days of election, habit, profession, and veil.

In those days, the Rule and the Constitutions were not read in the refectory.

When the Rule has not been read on Friday, it must be read on Saturday, if it were not for another impediment.

When a secular has recently entered, mortifications are not made for a few days, and they are not repeated until the prioress or sub-prioress says so.

We also do not read the Constitutions during this same time; but for the Rule we do not stop reading it.

28*

RECREATION

One must go as punctually to recess as to any other hour of Community and take care to bring one's work when coming to the examination.

When entering recess, everyone must kneel down and whisper a Hail Mary to offer himself to the Blessed Virgin, and to ask her for the grace not to say anything that might displease her.

We must not begin to talk until she who presides over recreation has arrived.

Care must be taken not to speak or laugh too loudly, and not to do any other action that is contrary to the modesty from which a Carmelite should never leave.

But as one must avoid being too light in it, one must also be careful not to be too closed in.

Care must be taken not to interrupt each other, in order to avoid confusion. Each, out of humility and out of respect for her sisters, should be more comfortable listening than speaking.

One must never support one's senses and thoughts, nor give one's opinion unless asked, or when charity requires it, and then it must be done with great humility and restraint.

One should not speak there of the things of the world, nor of those which one learned outside the monastery, a Nun having to have an entire oblivion of all that is of the century which she left for God.

One should not speak there of the mortifications of the refectory and the other exercises of penance, nor if one

29* gives little or a lot to eat, well or badly prepared. We must not tell a dream there, Our Mother St Thérèse strongly defended it, as our Spanish Mothers have reported.

We should not speak there of the natural defects of each other.

The sisters must be careful never to contradict each other, nor to make any reproach or any reproof, however small, but on the contrary, each must try to make herself agreeable to all, and to appear in great charity, s loving all in general, as Our Lord commands so narrowly to his disciples.

You mustn't say anything together that you don't want everyone to hear.

Nothing should be thrown at each other.

You must not sing there, nor read any book or paper, nor give, nor ask, nor borrow anything without permission.

If two sisters have something to consult together, they must ask leave to take another time for it, or else, if what they have to say cannot be recovered, they must ask to be together. withdraw a bit from others

When making fires at recess, we must remember that it is not allowed to talk while warming up.

FROM THE PARLOR

Those who are going to speak outside must, on entering the parlor or the confessional, kneel down,

30* and say a Ave Maria, to ask the blessing of the Blessed Virgin, to offer her the conversation they are going to have, and to beg her that nothing happens there that does not conform to the quality of her daughters whom we have the honor to wear.

Being in the visiting room, they must observe the same that our Mother Saint Teresa ordered for the portress, to speak low and with edification.

If they have to open the gate to the people to whom they are going to speak, it is necessary, before doing so, to know if they are alone in the parlor, and to ask them to close the door.

When the gate is open, they must not touch it at all.

One should not give or receive anything through the gate.

They must sit on the ground, if it were not for some inconvenience or some other particular reason preventing them from doing so.

They must take care to lower their eyes to it, to show no levity, and to be very modest in everything.

One must always wear one's work, and one must only have one's sleeves rolled up precisely when it is necessary to be able to work.

White novices must always have their little veil on when they open the gate.

If someone outside opened the door to the parlor, the curtain would have to be pulled down immediately.

The same must be observed if you knock on the one inside the house, adding to it to close the gate with the bolt to go and answer, and if you leave 31* the parlor, although for a short time, you have to take the key to the gate.

Only one of the shutters must be opened when there is only one Nun to be seen, and it must be the one who is on the side where the third is not, and that whoever is on her side is pushed against the wooden bars, so that she can fully see the Nun.

They must show no curiosity therein to know news of the world, which they have left for God.

If someone wants to speak to them other than those whom the portress or the third party has named to them, they cannot answer them without a new permission, and it is not enough for these people to say that they have asked for it, but it is necessary whether it is the portress inside or the one outside who comes to tell them that they have it.

They cannot make recommendations without permission, but they can ask the third party for their father, their mother, their brothers and sisters. Nor can they, without permission, pray to those who have come to visit them, to bring to them some other to whom they might need to speak.

They cannot speak outside for more than half an hour, except for some particular reason, and with the express permission of the Prioress. And they must always remember the great recommendations that our Mother St Thérèse gives us in her Constitutions and elsewhere, to withdraw as much as possible, to deal with our parents, and not to meddle in their business.

32* They must never speak of what they have learned outside, remembering that their continual care must be to concern themselves with Our Lord Jesus Christ and to forget the rest.

When a Sister has permission to speak on the lathe, she cannot enter unless the portress gives her the sign. When she has entered, it is up to the portress to approach those to whom she must speak, and, if she meets others, she must not answer them.

We must not advance at all in the turn, nor even touch it, nor remove what we could pass, but it must be the portress, who cannot give it unless she has it. shown to the Prioress, and the same must be observed for what one would need to pass from inside to outside.

One cannot write letters without permission, and one writes none during Advents and Lents except for some particular necessity.

One should not offer oneself to be a third party either outside or inside, nor should one refuse it.

When novices are taken on to become workers, they must never speak to them, but let the older ones speak. They can only whisper something to them if needed.

We must withdraw promptly when we hear the bell which warns that there are people from outside in the house.

33*

VISITS TO HERMITAGES

We must visit the Blessed Virgin, the good Angel, our mother Saint Thérèse every day, and this if we can, from the morning (1. In several of our monasteries, we place an image of the Guardian Angel in the hermitage of the Blessed Virgin or of our Blessed Mother, and a third visit is allowed which one can make, according to his devotion, in one of the other hermitages of the house, so that all may be from time to time visited).

On Sundays and holidays, one can visit all the hermitages that one has devotion to.

FOR COMMUNES

In the weeks when there is an extraordinary Communion, those who communicate only on Sunday and Thursday must leave this one. For the professed members of the chapter, when only one extraordinary communion arrives in one week, they are not obliged to leave one, but when two arrive, they must leave on Thursday or Saturday, and if there were three extraordinary communions, they would have to leave both. So that one cannot receive Communion more than four times (2. Or five times, according to the use exposed in the ceremonial) in a week, counting Sunday, without particular permission.

SEVERAL SMALL REGULATIONS

Between the two strokes of the Hours, the doors of the hermitages which are in the dormitories must not be opened.

You should make your bed immediately after the Hours, if you can.

It is necessary every morning to wash the mouth and the hands, and that it is in the places intended for this use.

One should rub one's teeth with powder which one puts in the washhouse for this purpose (1. This powder is simply soot, coal, or some other poor and common thing prepared in the house), at least twice the week. You should also wash your face once a week.

One must devote as little time as one can to these small needs, in order to set to work promptly.

One should not stop without leave at small devotions, when one needs to go by the house.

You have to clean your cell on Wednesdays and Saturdays, if it weren't for some party happening on those days, in which [case] it would be swept the day before.

It should always be done in the morning if possible.

No rubbish should be thrown into the dormitories and, if they are swept, nothing should be shaken there, not even the doorstep.

One cannot at all scrub or sweep his floor with his rag, which one has only to beat the paneling and to shake the small pieces of furniture which are in the cell, under the bed and the step of the door. Only if it rained in his cell, or if water was spilled there, could he use his dish towel to wipe it off.

35* One must not leave one's cloth spread out at the entrance to one's cell: it has been forbidden.

You have to ask for leave once a month to do your cell ready-made.

You must take great care to keep your cells clean; it is necessary to close the windows in the sun and in the great heat. They must also be closed against heavy fog, and in winter they must not be left open until four o'clock.

In this season, one should not leave the window and the door open at the same time, except the little that is necessary by sweeping his cell.

These same things must be observed in all other places under our care.

The windows must not be left open at all, unless they are stopped by a little rope or something else.

You must not put your clothes out of your cell to clean it before the end of the Hours, except for the Sisters of the white veil, who were allowed to do so after Primes.

We must never throw anything out of the windows that are on the patio, because everything falls into the cistern (1. We call patio, in Spanish, the inner courtyard that we designate in our monasteries as the courtyard. In the monastery of Avila and in some other convents in Spain, there is a well or a cistern in the middle of the patio).

You should also never throw any garbage out of any other windows, even if it is only small pieces of paper. You should not even throw water very little, and even then, however small, you should never throw it there until you are sure that there is no one underneath. .

You should never spit anywhere in the house, not even near the laundry.

One must be very careful not to stain one's clothes, either wax or something else, and this in consideration that it is the habit of the Blessed Virgin, and that it is blessed. Our Mother Saint Teresa watched her, wanting that by fleeing curiosity, we would preserve clarity.

If there is any stain on it, it must be cleaned up as soon as possible; that if oil were spilled on it, or on some wooden floor or on stone, it would have to be cleaned immediately, because otherwise stains would be made which could no longer be to remove.

One cannot carry a lamp to the main choir, nor leave one in the De Profundis.

White novices cannot wear them in the small choir.

One cannot use a candle without permission. One should not carry a lighted one through the house, except for the choir, for the refectory, for recreation and to go to the cellar.

You have to ask for leave to cut your hair every two months.

When one has not been to discipline with the Community on Wednesday, one cannot resume it without leave, but for that of Friday, as it is of the Constitution, one must resume it, if it is only by some occupation that it has been lost; but we do not have permission to take it back when it was not for prayer, for illness or to make remedies.

When, because of having been a reader or a waitress, or because of some other occupation, one has not been able to wash the bowls in one's rank, care must be taken to resume it.

One cannot leave it without leave.

Nothing should be taken at offices without permission and without having asked the officers, and as soon as it is done, care should be taken to postpone it.

One cannot read any paper that one could find around the house, even if there were only three words, nor even open any book except those which are for his particular use, and those which are in Community, of which he must still except the Old and the New Testament, having only those who have permission to use them

The novices can only read the books which are in the novitiate, and the others which are specified to them.

They should not ask or do anything without permission, even to get work and to return it.

They also ask her to change their bed, to shake out their blanket, and to cut their nails.

The professed sisters of the chapter have permission for these five things, and also to ask for cords of alpargates; in dress, which is necessary for them when they are not in prayer; a towel, a birch broom, and to make their cell ready.

It is not permitted to carry scissors hanging from one's belt, and if one puts one's reliquary there, it must be hidden.

You must not leave your books, your sandals, or any of the other things that you have for your use lying around the house.

Do not go to the garden when it is raining, nor to any wet place without sandals.

One must put them on to draw water from the cistern and to remove his handkerchief from his sleeve, lest he fall into it.

No book should be left in the choir other than its Diurnal, except that on the days when Mass is sung, if the examination surprises you, you can leave your missal there until the end of recess. You can also leave your coat there until that time, and even until Vespers, if it is a day when you have to wear it.

We should never leave it De Profundis, except on Saturdays, when the choir is done during the evening refectory, and so he cannot remain there.

He must always have the night in his cell, or at his office, or in the place intended for that, and when the novices miss it, they lose communion.

The days when the choir is swept, you have to remove your Diurnal, you can leave it to the De Profundis.

As for the books used in prayer, they must not be left in the choir, in the oratory or in the De profundis, but they must be taken to his cell or to his office, in the morning after the Hours, and in the evening at the latest after Compline.

39* It is forbidden to take away any book from the two choirs, and from all the other places where they are put for common use, and when they are used, care must be taken not to leave them. spoil or throw away. It is also necessary to observe the same to the books that one has in his particular.

One must take care when warming up not to burn one's breeches, and for that one must take off one's shoes, if some particular necessity does not prevent it.

Those who have wet feet must take care to turn over and dry their breeches and the inside of their alpargates.

You must not use your dirty linen to wipe your lamp, wood, or anything else that could stain it.

Great care must also be taken never to leave any pins in it, because that puts the risk of tearing the hands of the Sisters who wash the laundry.

Novices are not allowed to put oil in their lamps. They must take care to carry them in the morning to the office of the lamps on the days when it is ordered that they be put there.

One cannot leave one's lamp burning at night, nor use a candle after Matins without permission.

One must go to bed promptly after Matins without stopping except for what is inevitable.

If you have leave to watch, you must not stop going to your cell for the visit, in the time that you do.

When one is going to warm oneself after Matins, one must go there promptly, and each one must go to the fire without performing any ceremonies, according to what she has entered the heating room, and be there what she needs; but you have to be careful not to be there unnecessarily, in order to make room for others.

END OF EXACTION PAPER

One must have high esteem for all the actions of religious life, however unimportant they may seem, and employ all one's care to do each of them as perfectly as one can, remembering that if they are small in themselves themselves, they are great, and very great: In that they are ordained by the authority of Him whose greatness is infinite: in that they are means which he has inspired in his holy servants and handmaidens to to honor him and to approach him: and finally in that he promises himself as the eternal reward for the least of these small actions which will have been done for his love.

WORDS OF OUR LORD

“Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets: I did not come to abolish them, but to accomplish them.

Whoever therefore breaks one of these little commandments, and thus teaches men, will be held least in the kingdom of heaven: but whoever does and teaches them, he will be held great in the kingdom of heaven” (1. Saint Mathieu, ch. V, 17, 19).

“He who fears God neglects nothing. »

41* 42*

43*

Teachings instructions and opinions of our Spanish Mothers in our monasteries

(We bring together and give almost verbatim here the accounts of various authors, and very especially those of our chronicles.)

One of the practices of Religion that our Spanish Mothers particularly recommended as essential to the Order of Carmel, whose principal character is the spirit of prayer and retreat; was the most exact silence. To avoid what could have given occasion to break it, they required that, when the necessity obliged to speak, one expressed oneself as much as possible by signs, and they hardly allowed that several Sisters work together in the same place. . In the memoirs that have been provided for the history of the first monastery, all memoirs written by the hand of the former nuns of the house, one cannot see without admiration their exact fidelity to the practice of this sacred silence.

This silence was the fruit of the recollection and deep prayer in which they lived, for they were always imbued with the presence of the divine Majesty, and no occupation could distract them from it. Mother Isabelle de Saint-Paul said that the work only progressed so much: that she was working in the presence of God.

This divine presence imprinted on all their movements an incomparable dignity and a moderation such that they were hardly heard when they walked or acted. It is reported in particular of Mother Isabelle des Anges that she even seemed to speak in silence, for although she was full of gentleness and affability, she knew how to limit herself to what was necessary and said it in a tone of voice which, by making it understood what his recollection was, carried it at the same time in souls. Like all her companions, she recommended that one take extreme care to keep silence, and went into the details of the smallest actions to learn how to do them quietly, so that the house always remained silent, and that souls were not untroubled in their solitude with God and in their continual union with him.

The same spirit of prayer which made these venerable Mothers see the divine Majesty residing in all souls, was the principle of the respect with which they treated each other; they recommended it as one of the things that our holy Mother desired most and that was noticed in her first daughters. Esteem, mutual deference, charity, were constantly the subject of their exhortations, and they learned them by their examples.

They cherished the poverty which many of them had seen so great and so perfect in most of the monasteries of Spain, during the lifetime of our holy Mother or shortly after her death; they liked to repeat, speaking of the time when they lived only on alms, that in this way of life one finds consolations which can only be understood by those who enjoy them.

If their novices did not encounter the same poverty in all the monasteries of France, they at least wanted them to have complete detachment. When Mother Isabelle des Anges saw a nun attached to the smallest thing that was for her use, such as cell, book, picture, etc., she made her change it, and sometimes even a sister found her cell given to another, without the venerable Mother would have said nothing to him.

By this same spirit of poverty, our Mothers were extremely assiduous at work, and did not intend that even the hour of recreation could dispense with it. They wanted us to rejoice in it, but always working, so that if they saw someone whose hand stopped speaking, they said to her: "My sister, you are doing nothing, speaking and opening can -we." It was their proverb. When they had some pious object to show the sisters, they only brought it to recreation on a Sunday or feast day so as not to divert any time from work.

A character of gaiety also seemed to them essential to a perfect Carmelite. They paid for all the little celebrations themselves, composing hymns in the spirit of the solemn feasts. They demanded that one represent the holy mysteries and the actions of the lives of the Saints. It was necessary for this that the novices took care to read the life of the one among them whom they wished to celebrate, and each then said from the abundance of the heart all that suited the personage who had fallen to her. These festivals and representations, as well as anything that could interfere with work, were never held on working days. The intention of our holy foundresses in these pious demonstrations which bear so well the imprint of the Spanish character, was above all to sanctify the time of relaxation and to impress the holy mysteries more vividly on the heart and on the mind; but they found another advantage in it, that of preventing face-to-face conversations and accustoming their novices to a general conversation, so that the Prioress or the one who presided could hear what was being said, and take back the faults that could be committed. They asserted that there was no more effective means of preventing imperfect speeches and particular friendships: on this last point, they were inexorable.

These venerable Mothers had a special grace to speak of God and to make recreations that were both holy and relaxing. Mother Anne of Jesus sometimes had the Mass for the next day read at recess, especially during Lent, and she commented on it in an admirable manner which filled her daughters with devotion. When Mother Anne of Saint-Barthélemy, who had a special kindness and affability, was Prioress, the recreations were also full of charm and piety. Her fervent novices conversed with their good Mother about the graces that God was giving them. They simply told each other their good encounters, the Mother being as frank as the daughters. But what delighted them was that she almost always spoke to them of our holy Mother, of her conduct, her manners, her virtues and those of her first daughters, thus recreating them 47* in a holy way. She was also glad to see them cheerful; also when they were in a good mood and that some of them asked her questions on this same subject, she told them that it would be for another time and that she wished to let them talk together. But if the conversation dropped, she took up the same subject, seeing that it was what delighted them the most.

The Spanish gravity of our foundresses was accompanied by a great deal of agreeableness and gaiety, so dark and convoluted devotions were not to their liking. It was also necessary for their novices to always have an easy air and their faces well uncovered, according to the custom of our Blessed Mother who did not make her daughters wear the blindfold, but wanted them to have their foreheads uncovered as a mark of the freedom of spirit which she made one of the characteristics of her Reformation Mother Anne of Jesus and her companions all had an admirable composition in their appearance: one saw in them both dignity and modesty, the ease and mortification, as well as the imprint of the deepest recollection, and they wanted to see this recollection also in their novices. When Mother Anne of St. Barthelemy met someone whom necessity made come and go in the house and who seemed a little dissipated, she would say to her: “My sister, why aren't you collected? Why don't you take your beads and say it on your way, if you can't do better? Are you holier than Saint Dominic?

The zeal and application of our Mothers was great in perfecting in all that was in their power the young sisters entrusted to them. They observed 48* in themselves the air, the gait, the countenance and the least actions. One of their greatest cares was to examine the conduct of the novices in the refectory; when they saw one getting into the mood with good grace, eating everything without showing any reluctance and every day too: "Here," they said, "a good subject, she won't listen to herself at work." Did they see another peeler (that was their term) even under the pretext of mortification: “Whoa! they would say, "here is a girl who will always have a thousand difficulties representing it, that is not our doing, if it is even less out of delicacy."

If our venerable Mothers taught their novices by their speeches and their examples the most exact mortification, they were at the same time so full of tenderness and kindness for them, that in the least of their needs either for the soul or for the body, they warned them and assisted them by all the ways and manners of which they could think of themselves, consoling them encouraging them, instructing them of all the exercises of the Religion and the spirit in which one must do them, with a patience and maternal love.

Our Mothers eminently possessed the virtue of religion. There was not one of them who did not have a tender and ardent devotion for Our Lord in the Most Blessed Sacrament, and who did not give touching marks of it; all would have spent days and nights in his divine company. They took extreme care of everything connected with his worship; above all, they had a great zeal to see that all the ceremonies were well performed in his adorable presence, and that his praises were sung and recited with all possible reverence.

While the construction of the monastery of Dijon was being completed, the Blessed Sacrament was kept in a small oratory inside the convent. Venerable Mother Anne of Jesus stuck to it as long as she could, and the fiery words she addressed to her daughters showed enough how happy she was to find herself even outwardly so close to Our Lord. She wished to use for him the most precious perfumes, and not finding any in France which equaled those of Spain, she begged M. de Brétigny to send her some from that country. She said the office in the choir with so much piety and dignity that she trained her daughters to say it in the same way, so that one conceived a high idea of ​​the fervor and dignity of the nuns when hearing them celebrate. divine praise

The faithful companion of our holy Mother, the venerable Mother Anne of Saint-Barthélemy, had a very high esteem for the ceremonies of the Holy Church, however small they were. She called them treasures and imprinted their devotion and respect on others. When, having received the black veil, she saw herself obliged to perform the office, it was marvelous to see the respect, the attention, the reverence and the reverence with which she recited it. One could often notice by the change of his face, the great fervor of his soul and his deep application to psalmody.

Mother Éléonore de Saint Bernard had no less esteem and respect for the ceremonies of the Church, to the point that it is reported that she would have preferred the 50th death to the omission of a single one.

This great zeal earned her celestial assistance, for when divine love absorbed her to the point that she was no longer in external acts, her angel, it is said, was forced to warn her of the ceremonies she was to perform. . To see him make a bow in the choir or passing in front of an altar, one felt drawn to meditation. She was extraordinarily assiduous in choir, especially when the Blessed Sacrament was exposed, and she did not know what to do to embellish the altars.

It was the same with Mother Isabelle de Saint Paul; she watched with extreme care over everything connected with the worship of the Blessed Sacrament, and she hardly ever left the choir when Our Lord was exposed. She assisted at the office with the gravity and respect demanded by the majesty of God. She did not suffer the slightest lapse in ceremony or pronunciation, saying that a single mispronounced syllable must be regarded as a great fault by a nun imbued with the presence of God in the most Blessed Sacrament.

Mother Isabelle des Anges made the hosts herself, whitened the corporals and was happy to make flowers and embroideries for the altar. In imitation of our holy Mother, it is reported, she desired that excellent perfumes be burned there. She herself, when the Blessed Sacrament was exposed, spread before him like an incense of very pleasant odor, for she knelt at his feet with a deep respect and a love which appeared on her inflamed face. Like her companions, it seemed then that she could not leave him. Like them also, she had an extreme devotion to receive, by absolution, the effusion of the precious blood on her soul; she often asked for it, not out of fear, but out of love, so that it was not even enough for her to go to confession twice a week, according to the Spanish custom that our venerable Mothers had brought to us. She immersed herself in this sacred bath with such perfect disposition that her soul found there each time a renewal of grace. Finally, this venerable Mother had a special zeal for the recitation of the Holy Office, wanting the Latin to be pronounced perfectly and pauses between verses because she had always seen it observed in Spain. She had great grace in leading the choir piously. God had given her a voice, strong, clear and so devout that it was a great consolation to hear it, not only for her daughters, but also for the seculars who said to one another: "Let's go to the Carmelites to hear the good Spanish mother. »

When Mother Béatrix de la Conception was sent to the Carmel of Pontoise, she spent the little time she remained there instructing the novices in the ceremonies of the choir and the customs of the Order, which she did much more through her examples only by his words being in everything of an admirable exactitude. She listened with delight to the holy word, and whatever a sermon might be, she did not allow a single word to be said which testified to disgust. His devotion to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass was very special: we must repeat ourselves again to say how great was his love for the Blessed Sacrament, and his assiduity near it when it was exposed, for the various accounts of her life, like those of each of our holy foundresses, insists too much on this point for us to be able to omit it. She said it was a great lack of courtesy to leave such a great Lord for the creatures.

Our holy foundresses were so filled with the spirit of God and gave such holy examples, they also acted on souls so admirably endowed and so docile that, according to the remark of various authors, they made as many saints as professed. All of them, and in particular Mother Anne of Jesus, who was Prioress, instilled in them, says one of them, the spirit of prayer and mortification as Saint Thérèse had taught it, a great esteem for the Rule and Constitutions which were observed with great rigor and exactness, as being the most appropriate means to arrive at holiness; they showed them by their examples the good and holy customs which Saint Thérèse had introduced in her Reformation.

Mother Anne of Jesus often visited the offices, in order to teach the officers the means of performing them with perfection. To test them, she sometimes entered the robery and the sacristy, in the absence of the officers, put things out of order, then called them and asked if they performed their duties with such perfection! They did not apologize but prostrated themselves on the ground until the Mother made them get up. The nuns endured this with as much humility and patience as if they had committed all the sins of the world. On the eve of major holidays, when they came to ask her to do extraordinary penances, she told them that they should rather ask for permission to go and work for an hour in the kitchen, so that during this time the officer could go about her business. prayer, or went to recreation to relieve themselves, and that however they had to clean the pots and the cauldrons, that it was worth a good discipline, and that by this means one exercised mortification with humility and charity, and that one had not so much cause for one's own satisfaction. She often said to them: “I have seen our holy Mother Thérèse of Jesus do such and such a thing, I do not want to teach you anything new, but only to maintain what she has introduced. »

She took care of the smallest details. A sister added needlepoint to her veil to make it more comfortable; the Mother reprimanded him publicly. Another having told her that it would be easier to tie the veil in another way, she continued: “God deliver us from these novelties, we must not change a single point of what our holy Mother has ordered. Finally, another had made alpargates with a little more curiosity than usual; the Mother saw them and immediately ordered him to break them, saying that vanity can enter as quickly through the feet as through the head.

The holy Prioress could not allow the slightest detour in her novices; the slightest disguise was in her eyes, as in those of the other Mothers, an irremissible fault; her example and her words carried souls to an admirable candor and simplicity which she wished to see appear in their conversation. She reported that Father Bañez, having noticed the simplicity of the first daughters of our holy Mother, asked 54* her if she believed that this colombian virtue would last forever in her Order; the saint answered him: “Father, while they persevere in this spirit, they will be my daughters; if they get out, they won't be."

Mother Anne of Jesus inspired in her novices an admirable spirit of retreat and death to all external things; she tested in a thousand ways their fidelity on this point, as well as their vigilance and their mortification. And yet his daughters were distinguished by the holy freedom of spirit produced by inner joy. This venerable Mother had a particular talent for attracting confidence and banishing servile and scrupulous fears, as well as those sad obscurities which delay the perfection of so many souls, by producing fruitless sufferings and fatigues as useless to others as to oneself. She knew how to inspire in all by her example an equal constancy to endure everything with courage, with a cheerful air, telling them that all cowardice and shyness of spirit were unworthy of a Carmelite. She never allowed them any inequality of temper, and she forbade them to confide in each other about their needs or their necessities. All this, according to her, was nothing but an infraction of silence, a murmur, a search for oneself, a circuitous route, a lack of simplicity that God does not bless. She also said that it was baseness to tell one's ills, except to those who govern us and to whom we are obliged to speak about them when they need to be remedied.

His maxim was that you still have to fast for three weeks after you think you can't take it anymore. Anything that felt pity for oneself 55* seemed to her a weakness unworthy of the generosity of a Carmelite, and she habitually repeated that reliefs themselves must be taken with all possible mortification. Visiting Dijon, she found a feather pillow in an attic. She immediately called Sister Marie de la Sainte Trinité, and said to her: "Go and carry it around, that we give it to a poor man." If these French women find it, they will use it and our holy Mother did not want it: we must not have any”. She was convinced, in fact, that the French women were less hard on themselves than the Spaniards; but she also found them admirably gifted to receive the imprint of holy religion and the spirit of our holy Mother. Despite these severe principles, she had so much grace and kindness that the novices went to her with love, sure of finding all kinds of consolation in her maternal heart.

This Venerable Mother, whom our Mother St. Thérèse had herself, as we know, trained in obedience, did not suffer the least return on her orders; ; when she was Prioress in Salamanca, she wanted to test the fidelity of her nuns and had them transport one day from one place to another, a fairly large heap of stones, getting to work first, then she had these stones in their first place. It escaped a sister to say: “But why these useless works which tire a whole community? “To teach you,” replied the Prioress sternly, “to obey without reasoning. It is necessary in Religion to do what one says without informing oneself of anything else. »

56* Another time, in the same convent of Salamanca, she placed on the stairs a small pot very well placed to inconvenience and irritate those who passed. She stayed there three days without anyone daring to disturb her or ask why she was there. Finally one evening, at recess, a nun said: "What is a pot doing on the stairs that you bump into every time you pass by?" “She is there,” said the Prioress, “to discover your imperfection. Go take it off and put it around your neck until further notice. To test the sweetness of another, she had a work of admirable cleanliness and perfection undone up to six times, without the slightest annoyance appearing in her novice. We have seen that, in another form, she took pleasure in repeating similar trials in France in order to exercise obedience and humility.

Never did Prioress inspire fear and love better. If she imposed by the ascendancy of her truly religious gravity and modesty, her natural graces, her immense, tender and vigilant charity, won all hearts for her, but without any amusement or natural attachment to his person.

She said that disturbing the common order was a public lie to the regular order whose name we bear. On this point she never granted dispensation, and often told her daughters that the grace attached to each thing is only found at the moment marked in the order of God, that advancing or retreating exposes us to act without grace and very imperfectly. "Whoever, in Religion, does not do things at the appointed time," she said, "only presents to God for the 57* fruits of his vine only verjuice or raisins, maturity and perfection do not arise. finding that at the time destined for each thing.”

“In prayer,” she said, “give yourself without reserve and if you can, without distraction. At the office, sing with fervor, without listening to mood or laziness. In the refectory, one must eat with a good appetite, without delicacy, without showing repugnance or disgust, which must be mortified. At recreation, one must recreate oneself with holy joy and freedom, work but without eagerness, and not be there with an abstract and recollected air that is unsuitable then”.

These are the main teachings of Mother Anne of Jesus, reported in large part in our chronicles. These tell us little about Mothers Béatrix de la Conception and Eléonore de St Bernard who did not fill any office in France, and we ourselves will report little about the Mothers whose writings and opinions we give below. . We shall therefore confine ourselves here to quoting some of their maxims.

Mother Béatrix de la Conception constantly had these words in her mouth: “Our perfection consists in small things; whoever will not be faithful in this little, will not be faithful in important things » Often also she repeated: « Let us be holy! and she exclaimed in recreation with a kind of transport: "My sisters, we still have great things to see, let us hasten to take good windows in paradise." »

Mother Éléonore de Saint-Bernard, full of love for God and also full of charity for her neighbour, used to repeat that the nuns, 58* in the infirmary must seek opportunities to exercise the works of mercy that the seculars work in hospitals.

Mother Isabelle de Saint-Paul, in the midst of the greatest embarrassments of holy poverty, said with a smile: “It is the great treasure of the elect and that which our holy Mother has left us. When she was consulted, her first word was: "Let us consult God." Every time she met, she had these words on her lips: "Blessed be the God of angels!" and this maxim: "One must speak little and operate a great deal." She often repeated: "We must support our neighbor, for God supports us more", and again: "We have only this life to suffer for the love of God, and an eternity to enjoy it." »

Mother Isabelle des Anges gave these principles for the guidance of souls: “Humility and charity are two good sisters who are never separated from each other. - One makes progress in perfection only as much as one makes in obedience. ‑ There are souls who would be as long as an arm in bodily penance, provided they make their own will as long as a finger. ‑ Leaving the world is a small thing, leaving the care of one's body and leaving it to the Superiors is a little more, but perfection consists in renouncing one's own spirit for the love of God. About the lesser practices of poverty, silence and mutual respect that she taught to her daughters, she repeated: “My daughters, we were taught all this in our novitiate; these practices seem of little importance in themselves, however, if applied to them with an inner spirit, 59* they advance a soul much in perfection. »

Finally, to sum up all the teachings of our Spanish Mothers, we will say that each of them, imbued with an ardent love for our Mother Saint Teresa and completely filled with her spirit, had no other desire than to implant among us the Reform of this seraphic Mother with all her vigor and in all her primitive purity. There is not one of them who was not animated by the greatest zeal to have the Rule and the Constitutions observed, and to inspire in the souls entrusted to him the love and esteem of all that Holy Mother had established. All the efforts of these great nuns tended to imprint these sentiments strongly on the hearts of their daughters and to establish on this foundation the most perfect observance. An inviolable fidelity to the least customs of the Order was incessantly the object of their exhortations; our chronicles report that Mother Anne of Jesus in particular, liked to repeat to them that they were in a Religion so holy and so perfect, that if they faithfully kept the Rule and the Constitutions, they would go straight from their deathbed to the sky.

61*

Instruction of Venerable Mother Anne of St Barthélemy

OF OBEDIENCE

In speaking to you of the Constitutions and the Rule, I feel a redoubled desire in my heart to see each of you take all possible care to keep them perfectly, and to have in high esteem all that is contained therein. Indeed, there is nothing there, however small, that matters greatly to our perfection. Without limiting ourselves therefore to esteem alone, we must come to works, by a generous resolution to practice faithfully each of our holy observances. But lest you lose your memory, I would like that, in addition to the reading that we do in the refectory, each one read something of her own every day, so that in a month, everything would be read. . Being, as we are, novices in perfection and in all the practices of religion, and in all the practices of the Rule, this is for us a faithful guide and the sure path by which he leads us, if we want to carry away the perfection, to which we aspire.

Since God has given you such a grace as to call you to such a holy Order and to such perfect regular customs, endeavor to mark your gratitude to him by fulfilling your obligations with all the care you can. Once again, count yourself blessed that the Lord has led you to what is at this hour in his Church the best and highest in perfection. To worthily acknowledge such a great favour, let us all beseech Our Lord every day to bestow upon us his light; let us take his blessed Mother for our advocate and, since we are his daughters, try to render him some special service. Being our Mother, she will obtain for us the graces that are necessary for us, and not only for us, but also for the entire Order. Let us pray to her that she protects him and maintains him constantly in his perfection, and that each of you holds himself obliged to do all that depends on her, always fearing that he will come to fall by his fault.

It is this salutary fear and this exact fidelity that our holy Mother has recommended to us above all things, and this at all times, but more especially at the hour of her death. Whatever entreaty her daughters then made to her, she did not want to say anything else to them except that they remember to keep the Rule of an entire perfection. To achieve this, we must forget everything else, as do those who serve the great lords. When they leave one house to enter another, do they want to please their new master, they forget the customs of the house they left, and accommodate themselves in everything to the tastes of the lord they have to serve. When, then, after 63* having served the world, we enter the house of God, it is even more reasonable that we forget, from the first day, the customs of the century, to take those which the Lord accepts and to which he binds so tightly.

He has drawn us all, this God of goodness, by a special ray of his grace: you therefore have no excuse to make. On the contrary, my very dear sisters, you must raise your courage by the still so recent examples of our holy foundress. They are such, these examples, that they inflame the hearts of those who see them depicted in her works, just as They give admiration to people who are aware of her virtues and who know the fidelity so perfect that she kept all her life to her Religion. Poor health did not stop him from penances and mortifications; on the contrary, she was always the first in everything, never slacking off, nor letting her courage, which she had very great, be overcome. In her Constitutions and in her books, she speaks of what concerns the novices with the experience she had of all things, charging those who will instruct them to take great care of their souls. You will recognize her charity in that she recommends to the Mistress to stop more inside than outside and to govern them in everything with compassion and love, which amounts to saying that the novices, being like young children in virtue need to be carefully guided in all their actions. So even if we give someone to children to teach them to walk, and to hold them by the hand lest they fall, so she wants the 64* novices to be led with love and sweetness, like children who know and must know nothing beyond what they are taught. On their side, they must have great openness towards their Mistress, giving her an account of their good and bad feelings, without giving in anything, acting in all things with great simplicity. This simplicity, our holy Mother loved to see it in souls, because she knew it well and knew its value. Indeed, where simplicity is lacking, truth is not found; but truth comes from God, for God is truth. However, this beautiful simplicity is little known in our time, although more so in certain countries than in others where people are more full of deception, because malice with its subtleties reigns there with more empire. But among us, who seek only God alone, this defect should not be found, especially since it would greatly distance us from the end to which we aspire as novices, which is to find the treasure of perfection, which was missing until now.

We must therefore give up our own judgment in every encounter, letting ourselves be led in small things as well as in great things, like a person who goes away dying, especially since if we do not die to ourselves, we shall not live in Jesus Christ - It is true that we need great courage to resist our passions and first impulses in everything, to be prompt in what concerns the Order and the Rule, in obedience and mortification, charitable towards each other, mutually supporting each other with humility to know how to keep an exact silence, to practice patience, in a word to repress all the imperfect propensities which are opposed in us to virtue. If anyone finds difficulty in our holy observances, let him tell it without delay to her who has the care of leading it, so that she can remedy it, if it is temptation. If, on the contrary, it is lack of courage or lack of bodily strength, if she comes to discover with humility and sincerity what she feels, God will speak to her through the Superior or the Mistress. Placing Himself in their heart, He will make them say what will be the best for this soul without wanting to suffer that it be deceived. Those who lead her will thus have light to guide her, and she will not fail to derive great benefit from it for her soul.

Let each, therefore, carefully examine her conscience and beware of embracing, for some human respect, a way of life which she knows well and cannot observe; but let all together continually ask God to grant them the grace of knowing his holy will, they on their part disposing with humility to accomplish it. If they do so, the Superiors will have the grace to discern whether their vocation is suitable for our Order. All in fact are not called there by God, there are several whom human motives impel to enter into religion; but their desires do not persevere, because they lack solid foundations. These people wrong themselves, and subsequently dishonor the Religion. It is holy prudence and discretion founded in the fear of God to consider beforehand that it is 66* to promise the vows, if one feels from the bottom of the heart and from a pure intention the desire to keep them. That if we do not find these dispositions in ourselves, the esteem that we must have for Religion must lead us to withdraw from ourselves. God grant us the grace to accomplish his holy will in all things! Let us therefore beseech him, through our holy Mother, that he deign to enlighten us with his light, now that it is a question of committing ourselves by the holy vows, and in particular of promising obedience, since this virtue, as you know, shone in our Saint with such great brilliance and such perfection.

You have experienced, during this year of the novitiate, the difficulties that each one can encounter in our holy observances, according to the strengths and the health that she has experienced in herself. It is for the whole life that it is a question of committing oneself to it. Let those who decide to profess weigh this commitment carefully; and, I repeat, if they do not find themselves with the necessary strength and resolution, let them say so and do not promise what they clearly see they cannot deliver. I am convinced, however, that those who have even a little love for God and a desire to please him, will understand what obligations they have to this supreme goodness for having made them in his image and having favored them with free will and a free will, I therefore assure myself that the one who comes to reflect on this wholly divine love that the Lord had for her, will have no great difficulty in promising obedience, seeing what she is indebted to him and what what a love like his deserves. Ah! let us repay him, this liberal God, doing on our side all that will be in our power to oblige him to receive our will and to be sovereign over it, Lord, so that there is nothing left for us to do except to abandon ourselves to his, but in effect and in truth. Thus we will be his slaves, and beings we will remain queens, freed from the servitude of the demon; but above all we will be his wives and remain his forever.

When we profess, we promise obedience unto death. Our Savior was Himself obedient to His Father unto death, and death on the cross; let us therefore beg him to grant us the grace to imitate him faithfully, and to die in him to ourselves, to keep with perfection our vow of obedience. Of what use will our promise be to us on the day of our death, if we have not responded to our obligation, having been obedient only in appearance? Ah! let us rather die than fail in this amiable virtue, and blessed is she who loses her life for it! for she will be of those of whom it is said, "Blessed are they that die in the Lord, for ever they shall live in Christ Jesus, and Jesus Christ shall live in them." Happy obedience which will thus give us eternal life, since by dying for it we will live happily by divine grace. ! Ah! what a great thing it is in this life to give our will to God! He esteems this sacrifice above all the others that man can make to him, and the sign that he accepts it is that we have rather submitted our will to his, that he makes us heirs. of his kingdom.

David asked only one thing of the Lord, namely to remain always in his house. This happiness is assured to her who will practice her vows with perfection; let us therefore be careful not to apprehend the difficulties that we might encounter there, especially since, in my opinion, the one who will embrace the pains of a generous courage will soon find there her dearest satisfaction. For the rest, take it for granted that the people of the world suffer more by doing their will than you do by renouncing yours. Think of the condition you would find yourself in if you were subjected to a harsh and cross-tempered man. Every day he could have given you the death blow, and struck you perhaps in mortal sin, which would have made you die for an eternity. Our Spouse, on the contrary, far from wanting to take our life and threatening us with death for trivial things, awaits us with kindness, and bears our faults like a father full of tenderness, who gave his life for us. . Let us hasten to show him our fidelity, by giving him what he asks of us, namely this complete abnegation of our will which submits it perfectly to his divine good pleasure.

Since this virtue is of such a high price that the Lord requires nothing more from us, let us work day and night to win it. Jacob, charmed by Rachel's beauty, served fourteen years to obtain her, although after all she was to die one day. But how much more beautiful in the eyes of God is true obedience, and how much more precious is death endured for it! Our Blessed Mother guarded her with such perfection, this amiable obedience, that even though she returned to Avila, firmly resolved not to stop until she had reached this monastery from which she was Prioress, if a Superior who held the place of Provincial told her that she was going elsewhere, she said not a word, although her reluctance was great and her inconvenience extreme. So she died in obedience, leaving us a rare example of this virtue, as well as of all the others. What obligation do we not have to work to acquire it and to make ourselves perfectly obedient to our superiors, in small things as in big ones?

This virtue of obedience is necessary in all matters of religion. So be punctual at the sound of the bell as if you were hearing the voice of God himself. Take the example of Saint Anthony in this: it was he, as it seems to me, who, being busy writing at the time when the divine office came to sound, and having left an unfinished o to go there, found his return the completed letter. The same saint, as I believe, having still left the Child Jesus there to obey the bell, who kept him familiarly, later found him taller than he was before, God wanting to show him by this how much this only act of obedience had made his soul grow in divine grace. Marc, disciple of the Abbé Sylvain. Tauler in his Sermons relates the second as a grace granted to a virgin living in the cloister. As can be seen in the course of these Instructions and the Exercises which follow it, the The memory of the venerable Mother is often unfaithful when it comes to quoting a trait from the lives of the Saints or a text of Scripture. elsewhere to the charm of his exhortations, all impregnated with the tender piety of this your truly holy soul.)

70*

OF THE VOW OF CHASTITY

The vow of chastity is the second we make to God. Of his excellence, as of that of the other two, I can say very little, although I have a great desire to know how to speak of him better. You all remember that while still in the world you had a mirror, which you used to adjust yourself; you looked there if your face appeared very clear, and if your way was to please those who would come to consider you. This mirror, Religion gives it to us, although in a different way, so that looking at the holy customs of our state, we know what is proper to rejoice the eyes of Jesus our Bridegroom. The sight of this divine Lord is quite pure and quite simple, and he claims to find in his wives the same simplicity and clearness. It is in this mirror of the Holy Religion that we will see clearly what is to his taste, and it will be easy for us to know if it is in all truth that we have given him our will. If so, all the rest is his, and we must be sure that he takes us for his own. Our walk should therefore be modest and religious, our words rare, simple and well considered, our sight mortified, our ears closed to all that is not God, and the door of our understanding closed to all vain, distracting thoughts. the soul and separate it from its perfect purity.

71* If you act in this way, as it is your duty, your hearts will be pure in the sight of the Lord; he will take his divine pleasures there, and you will be, with all the virgins, the delicious garden of the Bridegroom. Each of your actions will be for him music full of sweetness, which will rejoice heaven and earth. O amiable virtue, which has so many charms in the eyes of God! Blessed are the souls who will endure some work to keep you, even if they have to give their lives for you! This is the example left to us by Saint Agnes and so many other holy virgins, who brought to Jesus Christ their Spouse and to his Blessed Mother such ardent love that its rays spread throughout the entire Church.

This most holy Mother of God is a perfect model for us of this beautiful purity, even better than any creature whatsoever. The more we come to consider in it the excellence of the virtues, the more we will recognize its value and the more strength we will have to work to become like it. In any meeting let us have recourse to this very pure Virgin, and believe that she will not fail to favor us as often as we address her our requests.

POVERTY

I do not think it is difficult for you to understand what poverty is, if you are truly obedient. Indeed, the obedience of a soul is the surest mark of its poverty of spirit, as of its humility; the more so as this virtue for the ordinary, brings with it all the others. The obedient indeed 72* possesses purity of heart, I mean if his obedience is true, and he tenderly cherishes poverty.

This virtue of poverty proceeds from a heart undeceived by the illusions of the world, which despises all its vanities, and desires nothing beyond what is necessary for the maintenance of its life. If he could even do without it, it would be an extreme joy to him, so little does the really poor care about these things. You will see the souls who possess this virtue take all their pleasure in using only the vilest things, both in food and in clothes, and perhaps they will do so less with the intention of mortifying themselves than because everything the rest bothers and embarrasses them: one would say that they have never known anything but the most rigorous poverty. These truly poor in spirit have lost self-love; they no longer have any inclination for honor or esteem; they no longer value being regarded as virtuous; but they desire in all things to deny themselves entirely, to make themselves like in some way the truly poor in spirit, Jesus Christ, our Master.

Oh! Blessed is the vow of poverty for the soul which knows its value, which values ​​it at its true value and keeps it to the full extent of its obligations! And who was poorer, more despised, and had more fault in the things of this life than Jesus Christ Our Lord? He subjected himself to being nourished by the work of a poor carpenter, and wanted his blessed Mother to contribute hers also. It is certain, however, that for this most holy Virgin poverty was not the effect of necessity or of violence. Nor was it for Christ our Saviour, since 73* all things were his and if his Majesty had willed, all

the riches and all the pleasures of the world would have been placed at his orders and at his service. All creatures, indeed, render obedience to the Lord, with the exception of ungrateful men. Alas, we all share in this ingratitude from sin, and yet there is no creature more obliged to him than we are, since he has favored us to such an extent as to have created us in his likeness, made us capable of him. - even, filled with benefits by operating for us his divine mysteries, and yet we are among his most unfaithful and most misunderstanding creatures.

EXACT OBSERVANCE

To keep well the vows we have made to the Lord, is there no safer way for us than the faithful observance of the Rule and the Constitutions? Among other things, our Blessed Mother noted there, as you know, that nothing could be settled for dinner time. It is that at the beginning of our Reformation we lived only on alms so that the nuns often lacked bread, not only for dinner but even for a simple collation. I remember that several times, everything having come to a fault, we got up from the table with great joy, without having eaten anything. But I will not say anything else here except that one day when we were having supper, the Community having gone to the refectory found nothing there for its repair: after having blessed the tables, we went to recreation. , with lively gladness; it seemed that all the Sisters were on fire in the love of God. We were then at Compline, then we withdrew. We were in silence when someone knocked on the door with such importunity that our Mother ordered us to go and answer. It was an alms that Our Lord sent us from a good place; for a monk being in his cell, the divine Master had told him that his servants had nothing to eat. As he was Superior, he commanded that we be brought from all that was in his house.

This is the cause for which our Saint made this Constitution; but it is no longer necessary for you who do not live on alms, and it would now be a fault on the part of the officers to pass or change the hour ordained by the Constitutions. That this does not happen in any way; those who have services must, on the contrary, take all their care to arrive punctually at the times set for Mass and for meals, especially since changing the time of an exercise is to bring confusion in everything else. Indeed, all following one another, it is enough that the hour of only one is disturbed to make fault with all the others. The portress must carry out exactly the commissions given to her, and the other officers must warn her the day before of what is necessary. May the Sisters strive at all times to treat together in humility and charity, supporting one another, and relieving one another with love. This is what will make the offices light for them and will prevent them from feeling the work. Let them in every meeting maintain perfect modesty and exact composition in their words, saying only those which are necessary, and practicing in all things patience and mortification. Much is needed in a good nun; but it is by these virtues that one will be able to judge whether the modesty that you observe on the outside is really interior. The exterior will always be of little value if it does not proceed from a solid virtue, founded in humility and mortification. God deign to grant us this true virtue! How often, in fact, do we speak of religion! And yet I don't know if we really know what it is. Do you think that to be a nun it is enough to be enclosed within four walls, and to follow the Community to the choir, to the refectory and to the other exercises of regular life? It is no doubt a good thing for everyone to strive to be perfectly accurate, and it is an obligation for you to do so; but if your actions lack that lofty end which makes works truly perfect, namely: the right intention to act only for God alone, you will find yourself very deceived as a result.

This outward composition is seen in many monks and nuns, moreover very distracted from God, whom, however, because of their punctuality in the outward ceremonies, one would take for saints; and if, with all this appearance of virtue, there is hidden pride in them, it becomes a way of perdition for them. This was seen in large numbers and the Lord allowed him to come to discover himself, to serve as an example to others.

We read in the chronicles of Saint Dominic, written by a religious of this Order, that we saw one day in a monastery, several religious whom none of the community knew. The Prior asked them in the name of God who they were. They replied that they had been of his Order, and that the Lord had commanded them to come and declare that they were damned, that others, taking advantage of this warning, might reflect on their own lives. We have been, they said, scholars, doctors and superiors, and we have seen ourselves condemned to the judgment of God, for the pride and vanity with which we have defiled our works. Covering in the eyes of men the malice of their souls, they had used a deceptive appearance of virtue and a false religious modesty, which made them esteem saints; but after having deceived the world, they had finally lost themselves.

Let us therefore live unceasingly in the fear of the Lord, trusting in his goodness that, if we are faithful to him, he will not refuse us the graces necessary for our perfection, and especially the light which will regulate our life according to true humility and the perfect contempt for ourselves. This light will teach us the path to follow in order to dominate our passions and submit them to the divine will. This sole motive of Dicu's will should suffice to make us vigilant in keeping our Rule; Be sure, moreover, that without singular vigilance we will fail in many things, without even noticing it. Let us therefore have the eyes of our soul constantly fixed on the Lord, as the Rule commands, making a serious reflection on the means of pleasing him and keeping his law and his ordinances with perfection. His divine Majesty himself assures us: his law is 77* sweet and his burden light. You will know it well from experience if you do everything out of love, which is in everyone's power and easy for everyone.

He who cherishes the Lord, says the Scripture, who knows the delights of his holy house, and has tasted the sweets of wisdom, walks in fear and in truth. The truth, in fact, cannot be without fear, because the truth shows us what God is and what we are and at the same time makes us know the danger in which we find ourselves of losing our sovereign good: now, we don't be afraid to lose what you don't know. Fear is therefore a great gift from God, especially since through it all justice is accomplished. Our holy Rule also tells us that those are persecuted by the devil who want to live piously in Jesus Christ. It is for this reason that she recommends us to try with all our power to put on the armor of God, because it is written: the holy thought will keep you, and again: Put on the breastplate of righteousness, so that with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength you loved God your Lord as yourselves. Let us reflect deeply on these words and meditate on them in our hearts. Let us also remember that the Rule also recommends faith to us, without which it is impossible to please God, especially since if faith fails us, fear itself will not obtain for us the salvation that we hope for from the goodness of God. Lord.

Thank her unceasingly, this infinite goodness, for having rescued you from the servitude of Egypt and called you to live under such a holy Rule. May you remember 78* the children of Israel, so that you fear returning like them to the follies of the world which you have left. Consider the truly blessed condition of life in which God has placed you, and know that, provided you prepare yourself properly to receive his favors, he will make the harshness of the desert delicious for you, even making you find there more sweetness than in all the pleasures of the world and in the satisfaction of your disordered appetites. That if, on the contrary, you were to turn your eyes once again to the things of the age, which would in some way be returning to the worship of idols, you would infallibly fall into blindness with regard to the things of Religion, which we are bound to love and esteem as the precious pledges of our salvation.

I therefore ask you to do everything in your power to truly detach yourself from the world, from your friends and loved ones. Consider that if you were really poor and wretched when you lived in the middle of the century, you would be much more so if you still nourished some inclination for its vanities in the state where you are today. Religion, indeed, would be of little use to you, if you still had any esteem for the world. It seems to me that it would be the same as if one committed a crime in a church: although this holy place is the asylum of the other culprits, it would not guarantee them, because justice could draw them out for their give death. Consider also that the Angels gained little advantage from making heaven their home, since they sinned there in pride and deserved to be thrown into hell forever. It is therefore for you of singular importance to state what is said in our Constitutions, namely, that we withdraw from dealing with seculars, even though they are very close relatives. These visits, in fact, serve only to recall to our memory the vanities of the world; they do not fail to say flattering words to us there, and these false praises remain in our minds to the detriment of our souls. So that one will be the happiest who will live the most withdrawn, taking all his care to keep his soul pure and to observe his Rule with perfection. But in order to better teach you such a great good, it is appropriate to speak to you of silence.

QUIET

The Apostle, you know, recommends us to work in silence. It is, moreover, something obvious and certain that if we want to gain victory over our enemies, we must work tirelessly in the practice of perfection, until we die perfectly to ourselves in silence. In fact, let us fear that if our language publishes what it must conceal, we might lose the fruit of the virtue for which we work. On the contrary, the merits of the truly humble soul remain hidden from the evil spirit itself. It is beyond doubt that those who use a lot of words expend all the vigor at their disposal in their speech, so that their interior remains empty and languid, and they hardly reflect on the virtues they lack. quent: it is in this view, I believe, that the same Apostle assures us that our strength will be in silence and in hope. Silence, moreover, is the labor to which we are recommended above all to devote ourselves, and that to which the Rule obliges us most strictly; for, although the labor of the hands is a precept, we must acquit ourselves of it without failing in the principal of our Rule, namely: meditation day and night in the law of God.

Let us understand all the value of silence by the example that Jesus Christ gave us. All the virtues, it is true, shine marvelously in his sacred Humanity, but it seems to me that his silence is no less to be admired than the labors of his most holy life.

Consider in what silence he came into the world, and in what silence also he lived for thirty years. He saw all the offenses that were committed against him, and yet he made none of them appear. The pain caused to him by these offenses was a fire that burned ceaselessly in his divine bosom; the mysteries which he held therein consumed him no less; loving men so tenderly, and seeing their ignorance of his love and his mysteries, he had to be extremely violent not to discover them to them. What silence did he still maintain during his Passion, in the midst of the contempt and unworthy treatment with which he was heaped on that last night! Ah! if we knew how to weigh such a divine silence, what subjects for contemplation would we not find there?

If, therefore, Jesus Christ Our Lord wanted to yield his divinity to the devil, lest he hinder his Passion by which he wanted to give us life, must we not ourselves avoid publishing our works, and work in silence to preserve the fruits of this most holy Passion? Ah! let us keep it with love, this amiable silence, and greatly esteem its value: our advantage invites us no less than our obligation. Do not condemn ourselves by our own language; for, as Saint Bernard says, there is no member of our body which is so prejudicial to us as the tongue.

Our Blessed Mother was very fond of this precious virtue of silence, and practiced it with great care while she was alive. She has even appeared since her death to several people, testifying to some how much she appreciated their silence, and correcting others that they were at fault. I know one among others who, being a very good friend to me, told me that since she had taken this holy habit, that is to say five years ago, she had not wanted to make known what it was necessary for him not to speak during the hours of silence, even fearing at the rest of the time to say a single word which was not necessary. God permitted, as a test of her virtue, that no one should think of her; and in those five years no light entered her cell, nor did she use it, either for lying down or for anything else. The Prioress, when she was making the visit, opening the door and seeing her lying down, did not look there any more. It was the same of all his other necessities. These past five years, our holy Mother took her with her to make her Prioress of a monastery, and all the time she was in charge, she kept silence with great perfection and made him keep the same. Our Saint, as soon as she was dead, 82* appeared to her and thanked her for the exactitude that she brought in all that pertained to the Rule, but more especially in the keeping of silence.

Silence is, in fact, our most precious good, especially since it is by remaining silent that the soul becomes learned, provided that in silence it knows how to listen to the Lord. He says himself that he will speak to the humble in silence, and Saint Bonaventure teaches us the reason why spiritual souls are so few in number, which is that there are very few who know how to wait for God in silence. Finding no taste in prayer, these people go to seek their satisfaction outside, similar in this to a man, bad steward of his property, who, after having uncorked his wine and having drunk it, goes for a walk. , letting the wine lose its strength and turn to vinegar. He, on the contrary, who is careful and good-natured, knows how to repress his appetites and, whatever thirst he endures, he suffers it patiently and does not drink until the hour has come. Its wine, having remained well stoppered, is preserved strong and of a pleasant odor.

Silence keeps us in the fear of God and in justice as in a secure enclosure. These two strong walls shelter us from all the attacks of our enemies; thanks to them, our conversation is already in heaven, and there is not one of our words which does not worthily celebrate the praises of the Lord.

RECREATION

As for recreation time, it is understood that the Sisters do not meet there to keep silence; quite the contrary, in these two hours which follow one the dinner the other the snack, they must talk together and have fun. This is of the Constitution and has been regulated by divine institution, as well as all the rest. In all that she has done and ordered, I would have great scruple to add or subtract a single thing, however small it might be. She said that this hour of being together was of great profit, alleging in this regard that St. Peter strongly recommended to his disciples to communicate with each other in charity, especially as by charity, our faults are covered and converted. in virtues.

You know from experience that, through some sadness and gloomy mood, we sometimes go to recreation as if with regret, and it happens that the joy and the good spirit of the Sisters divert us from this unfortunate disposition, so much so that we come out of it. completely different that one had entered it, having even the spirit better disposed to prayer. At other times, on the contrary, one is so absorbed in this holy exercise that it is necessary to make a diversion from it for a little while, in order to return to it afterwards with more fervor and taste. If you were always in the same occupation, you would come to be put off by it, and even to take a horror of solitude, which is nevertheless one of the main obligations of our Rule. And even though the hour of recreation withdraws you from it for a little while, it is on purpose to make you keep it better, because you find it afterwards with a new fervor and conceive new desires to enjoy it.

The pious talks which are held in our 84* meetings have the further effect of making us more fond of virtue, and of making us better understand the necessity of working to win it. Our Blessed Mother told us that at recreation we learned to love and esteem one another, knowing by the holy conversation of our Sisters how much they are ahead of us in perfection. We see there, in fact, some doing acts of desire for martyrdom, others of contempt for themselves or other virtues, according to their divine love. A person who, in the time of our holy Mother, communicated very often with the Carmelites, said that they seemed to him to be like the Seraphim, who were seen by Saint John nourishing each other mutually with the fire of charity.

I strongly hope that this spirit which animated our first Mothers will not be lacking in you, and that at recreation time you will help one another with a truly fraternal love. Saint John gives us a fine example of this, since it is said that he went out into the countryside at the end of recreating his disciples. As some ill-intentioned men took occasion to blame him, the holy Apostle, knowing their murmur, told them that they bend their bows and tighten their strings, still and still more. They answered that if they pulled so hard, they would not fail to break; and the Saint retorted to them what you all know, namely that if one bandaged the powers of one's spirit in the same way, it could not otherwise be that they were entirely broken. What I say, 85* not that I believe we are doing everything in our power; for, on the contrary, we remain behind more than necessary, and that most often because we love ourselves more than not mortification. If I mentioned this feature, it is only because there is no lack of people to whom such recreations seem useless and unsuitable to spiritual people Believe, however, that the Saint had the spirit of God more than those here, and be persuaded that these familiar communications, by the mutual affection which they arouse in us, give us this divine Spirit, rather than taking it away from us.

If David affirmed that he could not but rejoice in the presence of the ark of the Testament, for the great transports which the sight of it excited in his soul, can each of us not with still more reason say of even in the sight of his Sister, who is not only the ark containing the tables of the law, but the ark of the Lord himself? The thought of this great God dwelling in the heart and in the soul of each one of us, should fill us with joy when we see each other and treat together. The Lord deigns to give us the grace to make us benefit from everything! This was the spirit of our Saint: we must learn from her to be gentle in heart and to love one another in charity.

It often comes to my mind what Saint Peter and the other Apostles or Evangelists have said many times about the meekness of Jesus, like those who had so happily experienced it. This divine Savior is called by them a meek lamb, a lamb in leniency and charity; he is said to be 86* full of grace, of gentleness, of benignity, of mercy, in short entirely a lamb. They do not call him wise, though all the wisdom of God dwelt in him; nor courageous, although he was the strongest par excellence; nor a warrior, though he was the vanquisher of the demon; but they call him the meek lamb, which by meekness alone remained victorious.

Let us often fix our eyes on this divine model, and leave to the people of the world anger, disorderly promptness, sorrowful moods, in short, all that feels the bitterness of the flesh. All of this is unseemly to a nun who must be a gentle sheep, as Jesus Christ made Saint Peter understand when he gave him the task of shepherding them. Let us be real sheep, filled with kindness to one another; let us show ourselves in our conversations full of patience and amenity: it will be easy for us, if we love each other with a true love.

So do not get tired of putting up with each other, considering how important this condition of lamb that is asked of you is to you. But. in order to achieve this, let us carry the divine Lamb in our hearts, contemplate each of his actions and see how, to remove any cause for excuse, the Church presents him to us every day under these features full of sweetness, when at Mass the Priest says three times: Behold the Lamb of God. Dearest Sisters, let us imitate him, this very gentle Lamb, and may our most pleasant recreation be to talk about him, as our greatest joy to keep him unceasingly in our hearts.

EXERCISES

From Venerable Mother Anne of Saint Barthélémy for every day of the week.

ON SUNDAY

I have a devotion on this day to offer all my actions to the honor of the Most Holy Trinity, maintaining in my heart an ardent desire to enjoy the sight of this infinite goodness, and bringing to this end the fulfillment of the duties of my condition. I pray especially for Our Holy Father the Pope, and for the Christian princes, asking God to deign to grant them a firm constancy in the Catholic faith and a singular zeal for its defense.

MONDAY

In honor of the mystery of the Incarnation of the Son of God, of his Nativity and of his exile in the land of Egypt, also in favor of the souls in Purgatory, I strive on this day to exercise myself in the charity and love of neighbor, doing everything in my power to that end, and even offering to give my life for the salvation of my brothers.

TUESDAY

In honor of the Holy Spirit, I pray this day for the preachers of the Gospel, begging that divine Spirit to give himself to them as tongues of fire, and 88* inflame their hearts with zeal for the truth. I exercise myself in the mortification of my passions and in the renunciation of my own will, at which it is at all times greatly necessary to work.

WEDNESDAY

In honor of the wonderful patience with which Our Lord suffered in such great silence, for thirty-three years, the insults and contempt that came to him from men, I pray for the captives, the prisoners and those who are agony of death. I practice this day in patience and meekness, remembering that my Savior said: Blessed are the peaceful, because they shall possess the earth (1. Blessed are the peaceful, because they shall be called children of God)

THURSDAY

In honor of the extreme love with which Jesus Christ condescended to enclose himself in the most Blessed Sacrament, I implore him in favor of religions, so that he restores them to their first fervor and perfection; and asks him that having condescended to lead us to his house on earth, he would introduce us to that of heaven. I strive on this day to arouse in my soul a lively faith in this adorable sacrament, desiring in humility of heart to receive it every day, and even wishing to do so, if possible, as many times as I breathe.

89*

FRIDAY

In honor of the Holy Passion of my Lord Jesus Christ, I pray on this day for souls who are in mortal sin and for the conversion of heretics and infidels, contemplating in devout silence the sufferings of my divine Savior in the time of his painful Passion, and striving to imitate him in his virtues, he who assures us that he did not come to be served, but to serve.

THE SATURDAY

In honor of Our Lady, I pray for my daughters of Antwerp and for all the Carmelites, daughters of our holy Mother Teresa of Jesus, so that the Blessed Virgin may take us into her protection and make us worthy of being her real children. Now, we never saw in this divine Mother any action that was not marvelously regulated; at the very time of the Passion of our Saviour, this very sweet Virgin lost nothing of her all-holy dispositions, and felt no indignation against the executioners and the scoundrels who killed this dear Son. O unparalleled patience! 0 simple view of God in all things! You cannot fail the soul in which it resides.

90*

Compound exercises

by Venerable Mother Anne of Saint-Barthélemy for Novices

(We place here Exercises composed by the Venerable Mother and proposed by her to Novices as a pious indication which can help them to produce similar ones. They have not yet, we believe, been published in our language.)

For the purpose that the novices learn to exercise themselves in spiritual things, we give them here exercises for every day of the week.

MONDAY

We will give thanks to God for having deigned to give birth to us of Christian parents, and to make us Christians ourselves and daughters of the Church. Virtue in acquiring humility. Mortification to practice: modesty of the eyes.

TUESDAY

We will give thanks to God for giving us his most holy sacraments. Virtue to be acquired: patience. Mortification to practice: do not listen and do not desire to know what does not concern us.

WEDNESDAY

We will give thanks to God for having given us in his Church preachers who teach us. and clarify his law, for the restoration of our souls. Virtue to acquire: obedience. Mortification to practice: restraint in words.

THURSDAY

We will give thanks to God for having given us an Angel to watch over us. Virtue to be acquired: poverty of spirit. Mortification to practice, renunciation of one's own will

FRIDAY

We will give thanks to God that in our favor he has given Saint Peter the power to forgive sins. Virtue to be acquired: charity. Mortification to be practiced: to think for the good of all and for the bad of oneself.

THE SATURDAY

We will give thanks to God for having given us his blessed Mother to be the model of virtues. Virtue to be acquired: the fear of God.

ON SUNDAY

Excite in oneself great desires to see God. Virtue to be acquired: Contempt for oneself and for all that is not God.

It is necessary during the year of the novitiate to propose every 92* days to the novices a subject of meditation, as well as some acts of love of God and practices of virtue, so that they learn to practice them. Every day also the Mistress will ask them how they behave there, for fear that they will come to lose their way through too much freedom or idleness of spirit. For some it will not be necessary, but most will need to be guided, until they have formed in themselves the habit of virtue and acquired the strength necessary to resist the movements which are opposed to it. . Souls still little practiced in prayer will find great profit and advancement in meditation on the mysteries of Jesus Christ.

In particular, we will always have in memory and in our hearts that of his Incarnation, considering the great love that God marked for us in giving us his only Son to become man and our brother and to discharge our debts himself. We will contemplate at the same time the purity of the Blessed Virgin, receiving the divine Word in her chaste womb, and thereby becoming in all her being the precious reliquary of the Most Holy Trinity.

We will then consider how the charity that consumed the Word could not be contained, as soon as he was incarnate, and went to sanctify John the Baptist in his mother's womb. We will admire at the same time the joy of the Blessed Virgin, who made him utter these words: Magnificat anima mea Dominum, my soul glorifies the Lord.

We will also consider the joy of Our Lady on the day of the Nativity of our Saviour, and the fire of love which burned in her as a result of the high knowledge which she had of the divinity. We will see her revering and adoring this God of love, uniting herself to Him and transforming herself entirely into Him; we will also contemplate the gentle Jesus turning towards her and holding her in his embrace, already poor in all things, and having no other refuge on earth except the maternal womb of Mary.

We will also consider the joy of the most pure Virgin at the time of the coming of the Kings, and the consolation she felt seeing the rays of the light of the Word made flesh already shining through everyone, and the kindness coming to adore her, render obedience to him and confess him to God. We will see these pious Kings laying down their crowns, by the lively faith which kept them assured of having met the true King.

We will then consider the joy and sorrow of the Blessed Virgin on the day that Jesus was presented in the temple: her joy hearing Simeon say: Lumen ad revelation em gentium, for burning desire

that she wanted her people to be saved, to recognize and receive their Redeemer; but her pain also, which she felt very great, understanding that the salvation of men would cost the life of her dear Son.

We will see in the flight to Egypt the poverty of the Holy Family, and the labors they had to endure on this painful journey. We will contemplate Our Lord and His Blessed Mother so hidden from the eyes of men in this extreme poverty, that they seem to be nothing in this world and to have no power in it.

It is no less obligatory for us to consider the pain of the sacred Virgin in the time that she lost the Child Jesus, and the joy she experienced in finding him again. 'Let us reflect on the anxieties of this divine Mother during these three days; let us learn from there to correct our negligence and our laziness, and let us deplore the little resentment that the loss of Jesus, this treasure of our souls, causes us.

It will be good to make use sometimes of these Mysteries and sometimes of those of the Passion of Our Lord, according to the profit that the soul will find in them. As long as time is not wasted and used outside of God, everything is taken advantage of. We are sure, however, to find very marked ones in all the mysteries of the Passion, for this holy Passion is the salvation of our souls, it is from it that come the wisdom and the knowledge of the children of God, of as much as the mysteries it contains are the very source of all science.

It is also an obligation for all Christians, and even more so for us, to meditate on the attributes of God, considering how infinite, eternal, incomprehensible, all-powerful, supremely wise and merciful he is.

At other times, it will be very useful to meditate on the seven articles of our faith which relate directly to God, making the following considerations:

1. God is one in himself;

2° God is Father;

3° God is Son;

4° God is Spirit;

5° God is Creator;

6° God is Saviour;

7°, God is the author of glory.

We can also consider the following seven articles, which teach us:

1° that the Son of God was conceived by the Holy Spirit and was born of Mary ever Virgin;

2nd, that he suffered death and passion for our salvation;

3° that he descended into hell, to draw from it the souls of the holy patriarchs;

4° that he ascended to the 95* heavens; [there is no 5° point]

6° that he is seated at the right hand of God his Father;

7th, that he will come to judge the living and the dead.

Our minds must not be content to pass lightly over the considerations of these mysteries, if we sincerely wish to acquire knowledge of God and of ourselves. Moreover, it will be of little use to us to read about it if we do not live in humility, purity and heartlessness, if we do not in truth leave all created things and all that is not God, if we do not renounce in everything our own will. As long as a soul does not know how to untie itself from all things and move towards God by dying to itself, it will not find the true light which teaches us God and his most holy will. Also, simplicity and right intention in all things are greatly needed.

97*

Exhortations of Mother Isabelle des Anges to her daughters

FOR SAINT BARTHELEMY'S DAY

Anniversary of the foundation, of the first monastery of the Reformation

For the love of God, my daughters, let each of you think of the place from which God took her and where he puts her, and the things for which he called us there. Our obligations are very great, and since we have found, as they say, the table set, and since we do not have to look for what we need to be perfect, let us be faithful to keep our Rule and our Constitutions, for it is not without great reason that we will find everything there, with so much sweetness and suavity, that I do not know how one can say that there is austerity in our religion. Everything there is so sweet for souls who have a little love of God, that although there is much penance and mortification, I nevertheless confess that all the pleasures of the world and all the contentments it promises to those who follow him, are nothing in comparison; and if we suffer a few small jobs and a few humiliations in order to conform ourselves more to Jesus Christ our husband, it is for this reason that we have come to religion, and if we are not there for that, I do not know. why we came here.

95* If we knew with what difficulty our Mother Saint Teresa and her first daughters founded what they left us, we would take great care to preserve it and imitate the examples they gave us. And if we don't have the courage to seek out contempt and pain, as those elders did, at least embrace the small opportunities that arise among us. It is for this purpose that God has assembled us here from various countries. Each of us has our different moods and inclinations (and perhaps they are all different from each other), and to make us all one and the same, let us have charity to fulfill the desires in the first place. of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and then those of our Mother Saint Teresa; and to give some accidental glory to this great saint, let us try to be as she imagined us to be on that day. I beg you particularly, my daughters, for the love of God, and I ask you by his precious blood, that each one of you have the others in great esteem and show them such respect and so much love, that you do not do nothing that she knows their power to give the slightest trouble. For we must have such conformity and correspondence between us that we have only one will; it would seem almost impossible being in this land full of miseries, and each having our own nature: but charity is the only bond that can unite us, and we must believe as an article of faith, that all that is not done or suffered with charity is not valid for eternal life. This is what God made known to me today after communion, 99* and also that the fruits of glory must be gathered on the cross, embracing suffering and contempt: for this is the way that all the Saints followed, in imitation of Our Lord Jesus Christ who himself did such great things for us. I don't know how we could complain of being despised and neglected, or even think so, since it is only our nature and our self-love that causes and apprehends pain and humiliation, but we must put on the one hand the body, and the soul on the other, and that we think that to satisfy the first, who is the slave, we do not mention the soul, which is the queen; for often we refuse the occasions which God has ordained for our salvation, because they are not conformable to our inclinations, and this is a point which must cause us great confusion before his divine Majesty, but yet we must not to lose courage, on the contrary we must fortify ourselves in our weaknesses, and I believe that what can give us more strength is to think a lot about eternity, as our ancient Mothers did, who had it constantly in their memory, and that there is nothing that helps so much to take advantage of opportunities, as to look at the first cause which is God, who sometimes allows creatures to blind themselves for the greater good of many souls and to complete their crown.

100* My daughters, I will tell you something, as best I can, about what Our Lord has made me hear with these words: Hoc est proeceptum meum, ut diligatis invicem sicut dilexi vos. It is my command that you love one another as I have loved you. Oh my God ! who could think or explain how much God loved us, since for the love of us he suffered so much contempt and pain, even spilling all his blood and giving his life on the cross. All virtue and perfection are included in this commandment of charity, and all the disorders and evils that happen in the world come from the fact that men do not love each other, from what each wants to do. one's own will and having one's particular contentment: for do not think that in order to love one's neighbor one should not suffer anything, that would be to make a mistake; we must serve him and satisfy him for the love of God in all that we can, and moreover we must suffer him, when his moods, his actions and his inclinations are contrary to ours; it is in this that the strength of charity appears. We must not look at what appears on the outside to love our neighbour, because even though he is badly conditioned he has a soul in which God dwells, and perhaps even the one who seems most imperfect and negligent to us is virtuous. in front of God ; thus it is very dangerous to judge the actions of others, and one is very often mistaken in this, thinking that virtue is vice, and that what is imperfection is virtue. To avoid this deception, we must honor God in our neighbour, and we will enjoy the peace of the children of God. If I asked all my daughters if they want to do the will of God, 101* each one would answer that she would rather die than fail to do it, and I tell you on her behalf that it is her will that we loved each other, as he loved us. His Majesty has made him known to me all over again, and I pray you for the love of his precious blood, that you do not forget him.

When the soul feels so forsaken that it seems to lack many things, with nothing left but a great fear of offending God and losing him forever, this experience makes it clear to him that he only the arm of God is strong enough to support her, she is all the more obliged to make an entire abandonment of herself into his divine hands and to have recourse to the merits of Our Lord Jesus Christ. , trusting in his great goodness and mercy, which surpasses our miseries and raises us from sin to grace.

ON THE SHORTNESS OF TIME AND THE PRACTICE OF VIRTUES

My daughters, do not make much of everything that passes and ends with life, because the earth is only a passage from time to eternity; but in this passage there are two steps, one by which souls enter into an eternal glory and enjoyment of God, and the other which leads to pain and deprivation of all kinds of goods, which will last forever. We must pray a lot, and ask God for a living faith to know these truths well as they can be known in this life, and to think about them often, so that we may derive some benefit from them. profit, and embrace the cross. Because since we are wives of Jesus Christ crucified, we must imitate him, and take the motto of our Mother Saint Teresa, either suffer or die. For me, I don't want any other glory than in the cross, and if it pleases God to give me the cross quite bare with a little of his love, I will be happy.

When all creatures would forsake me, and I should see myself more miserable than the reprobate (if that be possible), I would have recourse to God, and would offer him his Son whom he gave me, and all his merits, for Our Lord Jesus Christ, being God and man, has no need of his merits, and since he acquired them by suffering for me, I can tell the Eternal Father that they are mine, and offer them to his Majesty for all my needs.

It seems to me that all that creatures can say and offer me is nothing, and that it touches me only as if by slipping the edge of the robe, for all that they can give us of themselves same is not worth thinking about.

Of all the things in this life, the only virtue should be loved and sought after, because it is pleasing to God.

ON THE SPIRIT OF THE FIRST MOTHERS

I have several times asked God for the first spirit of our holy Religion; and as I begged His Majesty to renew it throughout the Order, I heard this morning, after Communion, that this first spirit 103* which our first Mothers had, was an entire disengagement from all things, so as not to to have sight only of God alone in everything: which gave them a holy freedom and made them so strong and so courageous that they feared nothing, founded on this truth, that creatures cannot give us or take away a virtue , for whether they raise us up to heaven or whether they despise us and bring us down to the depths of the earth, we are nothing but what we are before God and so we must have little esteem of everything what all creatures can think or say about us, since it is God alone who must judge us, who sees all that we do and what we suffer for Him. When it looks like we are saints, that will only serve as a condemnation if we are not as we should be in this little paradise, which is truly such for those who seek only to please God. My daughters, our first Mothers had him so present that their thoughts, words and actions were always directed towards him. They had such a great love for each other that if someone was in pain, the one who knew it felt it in her heart, and assisted him with prayers if she could not otherwise. If anyone saw another in need of something, she gave him charity with such gentleness, and showed him such a good face that the manner pleased as much as the action itself. How many do you think is needed among us? It is what increases and preserves charity, for we must not only avoid what can take it away from us, but we must flee and abhor what could chill it and take away the confidence of some in others. others, as on the contrary, we must carefully seek what can make it grow. It was also what was practiced with great fervor by our elders, in the time of our Mother Saint Teresa, and to show such great respect to each other that they regarded themselves as the image of God and the Temple of the Holy Trinity, which made them all esteem each other; and if we noticed in some of them some small defect, we covered it up and excused it as much as possible, or else we practiced the opposite virtue, and in this way we warned each other. , more by example than by words, because harsh words that smell of reprimand only destroy Religions, even if it is under the color of zeal.

My daughters, we have the same God that our first Mothers had, and we are in the same Religion where he gave them so many graces; this is why it will only be through our fault, if we are not in dispositions as holy as those in which they were; but what do you think they were doing to prepare themselves to receive them? They had a great esteem for the smallest observances of Religion, and were very faithful in the practice of the virtues, particularly in the mortification of the passions, feelings and inclinations which prevent the soul from uniting with God, and from pray in peace and silence. For if we knew, my daughters, the great noise that is made in a badly mortified soul, we would see that it is a strange thing. It cannot be said what power she gives to the evil spirit to trouble her and disturb her own appetites by 105*, when she follows them without mortifying them. Let us try to lose our contentment to please God, and to lose a little earth to gain a lot of heaven; don't think that what is so expensive should cost little. This life passes in a moment, hey! what will be the regret that we will have at the hour of death, to have lost the time which was given to us by God to deserve eternity, by making a faithful use of his grace and practicing virtue in the occasions. Multitude and number do not give value to our works, but the perfection that accompanies them, so that they may be pleasing to him. They must be made in union with those of Our Lord Jesus Christ, for without him we are, we have, and can do nothing, all our sufficiency comes from him. His Majesty by the merit of his precious blood, please restore us to what he desires us, so that it may not be shed for us in vain, as it is for so many souls who do not profit from this infinite treasure, and who render themselves unworthy to participate in the graces and the glory which is prepared in heaven for those who love God.

Great are, my daughters, the obligations we have to God our Lord: of ourselves we can never recognize them, nor serve his Majesty enough for the smallest of the graces he has given us, but let us worthy by fulfilling what we promised him; he will give us afterwards the grace to render him some service which is agreeable to him.

I have often told you, my daughters, that there is no need to multiply our exercises, but that the important thing is to perfect our exercises every day, and if we can, at all times we should do so to give contentment to him who has done so much for us. Everything must come to us from his Majesty, and also we must ask him for it by the practice of the virtues, of holy obedience without reply, by promptness in all things of Community, by interior and exterior silence founded on the presence of God. , do not apologize yet that one is without fault. We must earnestly ask God for these four virtues in prayer, so that we can do honor to his Majesty by practicing them with a perfect end: it is he who gives value to all our actions. Even though they are small, my daughters, let love not be small, nor the desire to serve the one who has done so much and will still do for us, if we are faithful to him. All that will be gained will be for the necessities of the Church, for peace among Christian princes, for the conversion of heretics, and for those who are in mortal sin.

In our novitiate, we were taught with very exact care the modesty and exterior composition of walking, speaking, without making any movement of the face or hands, and that in the choir we were there with so much restraint, that we did not make the slightest noise that could be noticed from outside and from the Community, which must be observed very punctually.

In closing doors and windows, it should be done with such modesty, that it in no way resents the light-hearted ways of worldly people. Although the thing seems light, it must nevertheless be done with an interior spirit and the presence of God, so that whatever seems the smallest, being done for the love of God and obedience, which is the same thing, be rewarded by the same God, for his promises are sure.

EXHORTATION FOLLOWING A VISIT

                             (This visit had been made by Fr. de Gibieuf to the monastery of Limoges)

Our Lord has visited us by himself and by him who holds his place for us, my daughters; let us take advantage of the warnings he has given us, and the helps we have received in this visit, and (as I often said to one of my daughters at the hour of her death), my daughter, time is short, let's hurry, and don't lose this point we have to win what must last an eternity. I would like, my daughters, that these words were engraved in our hearts long before, so as not to be carried away by our nature and by our self-esteem, which often causes several great degrees of grace or glory to be lost: for grace is the measure of glory. Let us not forget the example that we must draw from two of our Sisters who died, one in four days, the other in two, and who thought they were still far from this passage. We are no more certain than they of the time of our death, for the holiest and most enlightened cannot know when that last moment will be; there is only God alone. Do not think that it is very far, the fifty and the hundred years of life are only a point before God, 108* and on this point depends an eternity. All the saints who are in heaven have made themselves saints on earth, and if you ask me the way to reach this degree, I say that it is fidelity and correspondence to the obligations we have to God. Let each consider it separately, for as for me, I confess that God did not take me from less than hell; that he put me in a Religion where I can save myself with advantage, if it is not by my fault, and I often say to God, Lord, deliver me from myself, because our Religion is a sky on earth for those who only want to please God, as our Blessed Mother says. I believe that all those who are here have this desire, as well as to strive for holiness, because that is why God called us, perhaps when we offended him the most, and deserved it less than several others he left on occasion to offend him, and in the chance of getting lost. We have so many helpers to practice the virtues, that if we do not take advantage of them it will be a terrible thing. And what God asks of us more particularly is that we keep our Rules and Constitutions with perfection, and that we no longer look at creatures, because what does it matter, my sisters, that they despise us, since we are not in truth than what we are before God. Let's not amuse ourselves hoarding coals, since we have to hoard precious stones; let us think to what state and to what things he has called us: it is not enough to say, I am a Carmelite, God will have mercy on me; no, my daughters, God wants works, and above all charity. The Holy Spirit did not descend on the 109* Apostles except when they were united together in charity. The same will happen to the Carmelites.

COLLECTION OF SOME OPINIONS WRITTEN BY MOTHER ISABELLE DES ANGELS

You have heard me say several times, my daughters, that we will not accomplish what we must, as Carmelites, by doing common actions or doing things of mediocre virtue. The Religion in which God has placed us by his goodness and his mercy alone, wants us to be at all perfect. She is so holy that, if not by our negligence, we can all, with the grace and favor of God, become holy and from now on render honor and glory to his divine Majesty on earth, as the saints do in the sky.

It is the end with which we must do all things, forgetting our own interest, and paying no attention to what we suffer, or what we can suffer in this life which is so short. O eternity of rest, you must never leave the memory of the Carmelites, in imitation of our Mother Saint Teresa! I know a person who received great benefit from often hearing internally these two words: Brevity of work, and eternity of rest; thus she does not wish to have any in this life, since it lasts so short, and that helps her to hasten, and not to lose the opportunity of any work, however difficult it may be. But let us return to our subject of the perfection to which we are obliged. I find things that can help us a lot, which we must take great care of. The first is to keep our Rules and our Constitutions exactly, and that each of us be persuaded that she alone must preserve them in their perfection, believing with very deep humility that if she has to do anything, she is the cause and the beginning of others to fail, and therefore nothing should be neglected (however small it may seem), because there is nothing small in the holy Religion.

Another thing very necessary for those who are under holy obedience, is never to judge the actions of their sisters, which must be observed with much greater care towards the Superiors; God save us from this evil, my sisters, which is much greater than can be said or thought. One must also prevent oneself from saying: one does less towards me than towards others. That if this temptation should come to us, for we are subject to it as well as the others while we are clothed in this miserable flesh, let it only be said to the Superior; for if the thing is true, it will be remedied, if it is not, the means will be given to overcome the temptation: whereas if it were said to others, this temptation would be strengthened, and could be communicated to those which we would have said, and this fire would grow and would apparently be maintained on both sides, especially since it is the effect of the temptation to make us believe things are all different from what they are. in truth.

111* The esteem we should have for one another helps a great deal in this and increases charity, which is the queen of virtues. I ask all my daughters, by the precious blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, that they have this very deeply engraved in their hearts, that they do all their actions and say all their words in charity, for who has charity has God, and a soul has as much of His Majesty as it has charity. This virtue is that which disposes souls for the great things that God wants to do in them, especially since whoever has this virtue in its perfection has all the others, and it is of it that Our Lord said, that we will be known for his disciples, if we love one another, and all in general. I will say no more about this virtue, since everyone knows how necessary it is for people who deal with prayer. That if the prayer is true, even if it is not very great, charity will be the first fruit it will produce in the soul, as our Mother Saint Teresa says very well.

In holy obedience, my beloved daughters, take great care to look to God in those who command you, regardless of who takes her place for you. And as if God himself commanded things to you, believe that you can do them, since his words produce effect and fruit in the souls who keep them. And these are, says Our Lord, his mother and his brothers. We must have great faith in these holy words, which will make things difficult for us, easy. When Saint Peter had faith, he walked on water as on dry land, but when it failed him, he sank, and was taken from 112* Our Lord as a man of little faith. It was to this virtue that his Majesty attributed several great miracles that he performed for the conversion of souls, and for the healing of the bodies of those who had recourse to him. My daughters, without perfect obedience, we will only be religious in habit, from which God wants to protect us by his mercy.

Let great care be taken to guard holy poverty, because often one begins to relax its perfection in small things, and little by little one comes to relax in great ones. And this point does not entirely depend on the Superior, but it is necessary that each in her particular remember that she has promised God to keep her, who will demand a very close account of the observance of this vow. We must also remember that the truly poor never find that he has reason to complain, even though he lacks all things and even necessities, both internally and externally; Needs can well be proposed to the Superior, but it must be done with humility and submission, taking as from God what she will dispose of. This acquires a great peace in the soul and the gift of indifference and resignation in all that will happen, whether according to our will or not.

Let the one who will be Superior visit the offices very ordinarily, because there may be many faults contrary to poverty, sometimes not knowing it, other times out of custom, especially since they are not always the same people. who have them and each one imperceptibly could do according to what seemed to her best, and thus one could in a few years be cause for relaxation in the fashion of the clothes, 113* hairstyle, and other things which are used for the use of nuns. .

As for eating, although it must be prepared with charity and cleanliness, it should never be according to the appetites and seasonings of the world, and there should be nothing superfluous.

May we take great care to keep towards the sick what our holy Mother Teresa entrusts to us, what I ask for the love of God, both of Superiors and of nurses; and I also ask for the love of him to the sick that they edify all the others by the patience, the humility, the submission and the obedience that they will return to the nurse, and they will know by experience the great goods which one derives from being sick, and from being bound in this way. This is how we must do according to our obligation. Although there are third parties to accompany the doctors and surgeons, and other people who enter the convent, it will be good if the Superior provides to be there, particularly in the infirmary, and this is important; for there might be some newly entered who might do or say something contrary to the perfection and mortification which we profess.

In the infirmary, when the doctor comes, there must not be many nuns together, especially since the least that can be seen by those outside is the best, and the more consistent with what we are obliged to keep. It is good for the nurse to be with the third parties, so that she can tell the doctor what he asks about the subject of the patient, and the patient will only be able to answer him when 114* the Superior orders her, and if the Superior is not present, it will be the senior nurse.

Let the nurse give orders to have ready what is needed for bloodletting, suction cups, or other remedies that must be done, so that when the doctor or surgeon is present, they can give him in silence, or in a few words, what will be needed.

That the tertian never remain alone with those outside, because it is of importance for many things, and that this is guarded with great care in opening the door, and accompanying those who enter the house; for to do otherwise would be to fall short of perfection.

Take great care that all things of religion are done in due time, and that all the sisters try to satisfy them with great punctuality, particularly in prayer and divine service, because it is from there that one draws strength to do all other things perfectly. This fidelity to prayer is what I charge everyone for the love of God; let it be left only for a very just occasion, and that punctuality in prayer be the fruit of the same prayer, and particularly in those who have offices, so that they know how to manage the time so well that they do not lack it for this exercise; otherwise they could make great mistakes in their jobs, because once leaving prayer for a necessary cause, one could leave it for others where there would not be such a necessity, and finally one would come to to make a habit of it, and thus never to be punctual, which is a notable defect and contrary to the perfection of holy obedience. You see by several examples how much this great virtue is pleasing to God, among others by the one who, writing and marking an o, left him half done to go quickly where holy obedience commanded him, and when he returned he found him finished. Golden. This is what is of great merit before God, since we abandon our will to do his, in which our sanctification consists. I therefore pray to my daughters that they apply themselves extremely to this, because, when our enemy cannot win over us by causing us to fail notably in this virtue and in others, he does all he can to make us at least miss their greatest perfection, to which, my daughters, we must always aspire. O happy! and a thousand happy laws the soul which loses no moment or occasion of renouncing itself to do the will of God, in which we must put all our care, and not to consider whether we have any consolation in prayer, because I will always have more esteem for a person who is faithful in the practice of the virtues, than for another who will have great consolations and revelations. We can save ourselves without having them, but not without the virtues, and without imitating Our Lord Jesus Christ. Let this, my daughters, be our chief study, where we shall find all that we can desire, and in this consists eternal life, as God has shown to a person whom I know. He then gave him the light and understanding of these words: This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and the one you sent, Jesus Christ. So that each time she hears them, 116* there is renewed in her an ardent desire to embrace the cross and to imitate the Son of God. Ask His Majesty, my daughters, and let it not only be a desire, but let us have the works.

For the offices which are given in the Community, take care, my daughters, to do them well, and not by custom, nor with negligence; believe with living faith that it is the will of God that you do them, whether in the choir or elsewhere. We derive great inner and outer profit from this, and we accomplish obedience with contentment and gladness, even though things are painful, because seeing that it is God's will more than ours, it makes everything easy for us: and when these small things are done with such a high end, which is to please God alone, his Majesty disposes the soul to undertake great things for his service: for he himself has said, that he who is faithful over a little, he will set him over many. It is too much to us that His Majesty wants to use us in any way, being such miserable creatures as we are.

There are also great benefits from doing these services in silence; this is what I recommend to all my daughters for the love of God, that during the day, apart from the two hours of conversation, it does not seem that there is anyone in the convent, because although those who have the offices are forced to speak sometimes, it must be done in so few words, and so low, that those who pass near the offices do not hear it; one thus keeps what our holy Rule says, to work in silence, and to be in prayer day and night, because silence is one of the things that dis‑117* poses more those who keep it to treat with God . Experience makes what I say known, just as the distractions and worries that come from not having kept it also show the opposite.

OTHER NOTICES

I. At the beginning of all our exercises, we must always ask Our Lord to kindle in us the theological virtues, faith, hope and charity. We should ordinarily practice doing acts of these virtues.

II. Let the soul, as much as possible, forget itself for its own interest, with an entire resignation to the will of God, desiring nothing else or any other disposition, except that which His Majesty desires.

III. One must practice the virtues and exercises of Religion with great freedom of mind, not worrying when one makes mistakes; it suffices to humble oneself; for Our Lord is very pleased that we know what comes from his hand, and what we can from us, which, as we, can do no good thing.

IV. The true spirit seeks in God rather that which is bitter and crucifying than that which is sweet and savory. He inclines more to suffering than to consolation and satisfaction; more to be deprived of all good for God than to possess it; and more to pains and afflictions, than to sweet and pleasant things; knowing that this is how we follow Jesus Christ, and how we deny ourselves; to do the opposite is perhaps to seek oneself in God, which is very opposed to love, because to seek oneself in God is to seek favors and favors. caresses of God; but to seek God in him is not only to want to be deprived of these things for God, but also to lead us to desire and choose for Jesus Christ the most mortifying, whether it comes from God, or from from creatures. This is what is love of God.

V. The love of God is not to have tears nor tastes, and tenderness of devotions; but it consists in serving him with justice, strength of courage and humility, as our Mother Saint Teresa says; for the rest is more to receive than to give to God. Peace is in patience, because works are the support of the soul in this life, if we go out of some we enter into others, and so, whoever wants to have peace in the soul, let him try to rejoice in contradictions and sorrows, for love and with love of God.

VI. A thousand years in the presence of God is like a day that has already passed, and so, my daughters, let's not let a moment pass without gaining heaven and losing earth, that means being faithful to God , in what we have promised to his divine Majesty, on all the occasions that will arise, because it is a means that God gives us. We must desire and ask Our Lord to make us know and feel some part of the regret that is felt at the hour of death for having lost the time and the opportunities to acquire the virtues: these will be which will benefit us at that hour, for 119* all the esteem of creatures will be of no use to us before the eyes of God.

VII. We must often think where God has taken us from, where he has placed us, and for what things he has called us: this remembrance must draw us into the practice of the true virtues and into the recognition of the great mercy that God has given us. made, and to make sure that we have not received our vocation in vain. The good of a soul is properly to love God sovereignly, to suffer for him. It consists in the mortification of the affections, in the greatest nakedness and separation from ourselves, and from all the things that can hold us back and prevent us from seeking this good; for there is no other, but to serve God in truth. Let's not waste time, because it is very precious; on a moment depends eternity, and so it is right that we think how short life is, and on the eternity we hope for, by the merits of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Let nothing trouble us; let nothing frighten us; everything passes, God alone does not change. Patience obtains everything, he who possesses God lacks nothing, because he alone is enough for us.

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I. When I have trouble with something, it is the will of God that I humble myself, and that I say no word conforming to the feeling that it could suggest to me. I will do His Divine Majesty a service in this, and will do my soul a great profit.

II. I must think that there is only God and me in the house, and that I will be asked for a very close account of my works and actions; thus, I must do them with the most perfect end and intention that I can, seeking the honor of God and the contempt of myself.

III. When it seems to me that I am alone, and that all creatures miss me, I must look at Our Lord Jesus Christ on the cross, and think how much more alone his divine Majesty was when he said to his Father: My Father, why have you forsaken me; and I must unite my loneliness and my pains with his, which will give them value and make them meritorious.

It is a thing worthy of great compassion that we often prefer filth and coals to gold and precious stones, when to satisfy our nature and our self-esteem, we omit to practice virtue on occasions. . Let us never neglect, my daughters, to do this, even though things seem very small to us, since God does not reward actions so much as intentions. What his Majesty regards most is the spirit and the heart, which he asks of us with great purity and fidelity in all things. Many people work a lot and it is of no use to them before God, especially since they do not have the love and purity of intention, which are, so to speak, the soul and the life of all the virtues; and whoever does not have this, has nothing.

Three things have often helped and encouraged me to serve God. The first is to think that God took me out of the world, and perhaps out of the hell that I had so many times deserved. The second is to think of the sanctity of the place where he placed me, where so many souls have made themselves very holy, perfectly keeping our Rule and our way of life. The third is to consider the great things for which God has chosen us from all eternity, and what he called me to when I was so unworthy of the grace of my calling. It is also a good way, to arrive at perfection, to look in our examinations at what we have that is disagreeable to God, trying as much as we can to remove it, applying to this the graces that God gives us in prayer, and also to overcome our passions and to mortify our evil inclinations. The more perfect we are, the more we will help in the salvation of souls, because we must preach with preachers, teach with doctors, confess with confessors, being such that our prayers can help everyone, and that those who know us praise God and bless his mercies, which we should continually sing, giving thanks to his divine Majesty as many times as we breathe, if we could so. Our Lord made me see one day in prayer that all that a creature can do of itself is nothing to dispose it to appear before him in judgment. However, it is certain that what God will judge of a soul when it is separated from the body, will be judged for eternity. After this stop there is no longer a call, and this should make us live in fear and often implore God's mercy.

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We must hope for true blessings, but whoever wishes to taste them in eternity must earn them here, and not seek them in any other tree than that of the cross.

Sometimes the nuns to whom penances have been given believe that they are being wronged greatly and that they suffer like saints, and the poor girls do not see that their temper dominates them, and that they are not going by the certain path by which must go the souls who are consecrated to the service of God, and more in our Order than in any other, not walking with truth and sincerity towards the Superiors who hold the place of God for us; it is greatly failing in our vocation, and entirely destroying the spirit of our sacred Religion. There are several things which are good in other Religions, which would be the cause of great evils in ours, and which would gradually loosen its perfection (1. These last opinions are taken from the letters of Mother Isabelle.)

Challenges that Mother Isabelle of the Angels made to her daughters concerning the virtues, in order to excite each other to practice them with more fervor.

FIRST CHALLENGE.

I, a sinner, and unworthy of the name of nun, full of distrust of myself in everything, and entrusting myself to the merits of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and in the intercession of the most holy Virgin, in that of all the Angels , and of the men and women saints of our sacred Religion, and of all the other men and women saints of the celestial court. I challenge my beloved daughters to three outer virtues, and three inner ones. The first, to humility; the second, not to apologize; the third, to punctuality in all things which are of observance. The three inner ones will be, fidelity to submit our own judgment, without being given reasons that can satisfy our nature. The second, a perfect end in all our actions, with a firm attention to the presence of God, forgetting our own interests, and desiring that all creatures know and love God, that they give him honor and glory, and that they are on their way to the end for which His Majesty created them. And the third, inner silence.

SECOND CHALLENGE.

I desire, my daughters, that this Advent, with the help of God, we practice five virtues in union with those that Our Lord teaches us coming into the world. The first, humility of heart, embracing all that is contrary to our pride, internally and externally. The second, the love of contempt, with the desire to be known only to God. The third, a great interior and exterior silence, accompanied by a continual presence of God, with attention to his inspirations. The fourth, an entire fidelity to correspond to it. The fifth, a perfect end in all our works, which are worth before God, however great they appear, only according to the end with which they are made.

All that we have just proposed to you, we 124* must expect from God, taking the Blessed Virgin for our advocate, and for our intercessors our glorious Father Saint Joseph and our glorious Mother Saint Teresa, doing on our part all that we we will be able to accomplish what we have promised to God, and for the end for which he has assembled us in these little paradises; for, in truth, they are to those who desire to be known only to God alone, and who live with purity and simplicity in his presence: this is the true spirit of Religion. Let us beware of wanting to please the world with interviews that smack of vanity in the slightest degree. Our words must be those of hermits and solitaries, as our seraphic Mother Saint Teresa teaches us. My daughters, God grant us the grace to imitate her virtues, and to preserve what she left us at the expense of so many works and of her own life, which she completed in one of her foundations, leaving us, as they say, the table is set.

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LETTER FROM MOTHER ISABELLE DES ANGELS

The Holy Spirit be in the souls of my beloved daughters, and His Majesty gives them with increases his divine gifts, as I desire in the spirit of a mother who loves her daughters, not for herself, but so that they belong to God. To this end, his Majesty has called us, my daughters, and placed us in our holy Religion, where he keeps us removed from all objects which could cause us any harm, and prevent us from the good for which he has given us. called, leaving so many others in danger 125* of getting lost. My daughters, know this mercy, to which so many others are joined, that their memory must occupy us all our life, and make us say often what our holy Mother had for motto, Misericordias Domini in aeternum cantabo. O my daughters, how great are the obligations of the souls whom God has called to our holy Religion And (as I sometimes say to those who are in my company), how far will we be from accomplishing what we must, by doing what is done in some other Religions. God asks of us another perfection that he does not ask of others. At the hour of death we will see it very clearly, as I saw it in one of our Sisters, to whom God had made known the great good there was in dying in this holy Rule; how many times did she say: “O state not known up to this hour! She had been only two years in Religion, one of novitiate, and one of profession; she was only twenty-two; she had left in the world all that it esteems, riches and greatness; and at this point she clearly knew what it means to have left everything for God. My daughters, let us not wait for that hour to know it, since we must come there, and perhaps when we will least think of it; it is certain and doubtful altogether, and thus we know very assuredly that it will be, and we do not know when and how it will be. For what you tell me that I remember your convent, believe, my daughters, that I do it every day before her Majesty, because I love her in her, and desire that he be among those whom Our Lord made our Mother Saint Teresa understand when he told her that he would take his delight in the souls of those who would inhabit the houses she was founding. Finally, my daughters, the same God who was then is at this hour. The necessities of the world are much greater, because every day the offenses which are committed against his divine Majesty multiply, and there are very few people who open the door to him and who want to receive him, to be so occupied with the things of this life, that there is no time left for them to seek the necessary means to enjoy the goods which must last all eternity. God gives it to us good, my daughters, according to our vocation, keeping perfectly what we have promised; and so we can accomplish the end for which our seraphic Mother founded us. Let us pray to her that she obtain for us from Our Lord that we be true imitators of his virtues.

127*

Regularities of Mother Isabelle de Saint-Paul

(These regularities were collected at the monastery of Pontoise, where Mother Isabelle de Saint-Paul was prioress. They have remained unpublished to this day; we publish them from the copy which is kept in our monastery..)

Our venerable Mother was entirely accurate in the cloister and practices of Religion; she used to say that when the Prioress is in the parlor or in the confessional, no one should speak to her except the Sister portress. And when there were workers in the house, she tried as much as possible to make them go to certain more secluded places, so that they would not enter the cloister and inside the house, as in the dormitory, without necessity; what must be observed for the confessor, the doctor and the surgeon.

She said that the Sisters who are third parties to the workers are not allowed to speak together, even during recreation time, but that the third party can inform the one with whom she is if she forgets something; that not a single word should be said when the convent door is open, nor in the cloister.

She had the workers put out before the day was over, and made it very difficult to open the door when it was dark, it had to be for some very urgent necessity; she also took care not to open it at any other time except as little as possible, putting off everything possible to get several workmen in together.

She said that you had to be careful, when you went to the workers, not to give them anything unless their hands were covered with sleeves, like the sacristan when she puts on the communion taffeta.

She did not want anyone to speak to her in the refectory without necessity, and said that our Reverend Mother Anne of Jesus confessed to it; that the Sisters must respond to the Prioress when she speaks to them in any place whatsoever, whether it be in the cloister or in the dormitory, even during silence, and that it is a lack of respect to respond to her by signs.

The first time of the day that one meets the Prioress, one must kneel down, kiss her scapular and receive her blessing.

When you make some notable mistake, the first time you find the Prioress, you have to bow down and tell her your fault.

When you have broken something, you must carry it around your neck in the refectory; one should not bring a stove to the refectory to heat the portions of the Sisters.

You can't ask for anything in the refectory, except bread and water. If one drops one's knife, spoon, or piece of bread, or anything else that makes noise, one must prostrate oneself before picking it up.

When you leave something of your portion, it must be so clean that you can give it to the Prioress; one must not leave rubbish or anything else on the edge of the dishes. You must cut your bread whole, without crusting it, and not eat it delicately; a nun who does not eat properly does not keep her observance long; you must mortify yourself and not show disgust for anything.

Officers must not refuse anything that is asked of them, because nothing is asked without a licence; and if they do not have what is asked of them, they should not discourage the Sisters, but tell the Prioress, so that she provides for it.

The Sisters who enter into any office must, as far as they can, do as those who preceded them, and change nothing of their place.

There must always be Sisters in their cells, without offices, so that they sanctify themselves for all the others, and that they are more ready when we want to use them; and it is good that all are there from time to time, especially those who are on the turn, or who are occupied in entertaining action.

The zealots must be very exact in their office, and those who do not warn are charged with all the faults of the Community; they must first go to the Prioress, in order to do what the Constitution says: the zealots will correct the faults by the command of the Prioress.

One must not speak in the ways; there are places designated for this, and if two Sisters are talking together, and the Prioress passes, we must remain in silence and respect until she has passed. You must not speak at the cell door, except for a word or two in a very low voice for something 130* necessary (1. Exaction paper recommends not saying a single word there). If a Sister walks too hard in the dormitory, a professed sister must leave her cell to go and prostrate herself at her feet.

When some Sisters speak loudly and in a way that is not respectful, those who hear them must prostrate themselves at their feet; when some Sister, during the day, closes the windows of the choir to be there more in meditation, the others must not open them to read or do something else, but go to the De Profundis (2. It goes without saying that, out of the same feeling of deference, a Sister would only allow herself to close the shutters if she found herself alone in the choir).

She said that the Sisters should not talk about penances for each other, because that takes away the freedom to do them; that one should not spit on the ground in the house, because the Sisters prostrate themselves sometimes where they meet, according to the trait of the spirit.

That it should not be easy to make appear the little infirmities which can be borne between the soul and God; but she took great care, when there was a sick Sister, to comfort her with her great charity, so that the Sisters were afraid that their nature would take something, and they were apprehensive of being sick because of that. She did not want anyone other than the Prioress to know of the infirmities of her Sisters, saying that it was against the Constitution.

She told us about this that being once in the parlor with our Blessed Mother Anne of Jesus, 131* they asked her how she was; she simply said that she had a fever; the venerable Mother reprimanded her, then she told her that she had been afraid of lying; but she replied that he should say: Thanks to Our Lord, strong at your service.

She was so faithful to the work, that she always had the work in hand, and excited us a lot, saying that by seeing a person working, we recognize his spiritual advancement; so that she wanted us to make good use of the time, even that of recreation, and when she saw one of the Sisters raise her head without doing anything, she told us that in Spain, our Mothers used to to say on such an occasion: Open and talk can we. That is to say: one can talk and work. She gave us great weight with these words from the first chapter of our holy Rule: And after having promised obedience, will take care to keep it in truth by his works; and these other words: Let everyone stay in their cell ; saying that one could not leave his cell without a license to go and work elsewhere, and that one should not shut himself up there without a license.

She told us with these words: Meditating day and night in the law of God, that it was to do his actions during the day in the presence of Our Lord and in union with those he performed while on earth, and that this was the spirit of our Holy Mother Teresa.

She told us that Our Lord punished her ingratitudes with very great mercies, and when she had felt some activity of spirit, as it could not sometimes be otherwise in the occupations she had, she considered it a very 132* great crime. She found a way to humble herself in everything, even in things no one would ever have thought of. She sometimes told us that it is a very great grace to be taken back; that when we were despised, they only despised in us that which is of us and not that which is of God in us, and that as we were to desire only his glory, we were to rejoice greatly in contempt; and did it like this: we saw her having as many as possible, and she told us that she had such a great joy of spirit, that it seemed to her that, even in this life, she experienced something thing of the state of the blessed, in a very profound peace. She had a very sensitive love for the people she saw humiliated, despised.

She had a very great love for holy poverty; she practiced it in all she could; she always wanted to wear out her clothes to the end, saying that our blessed Mother Anne of Jesus had worn a dress for twenty years (1. When Mother Isabelle of Saint-Paul spoke thus, Venerable Mother Anne of Jesus was not yet at the end of her career: we know that she wore the same dress from her taking of the habit until her death. , i.e. for nearly fifty-one years), and when she found some small piece of cloth in the sweepings, she had it washed to make it again, saying that it was necessary to wear a poor clean coat, without care. (2. i.e. without research). She didn't want those in charge of the robes to give the Sisters each other's clothes, giving something newer or more honest to the former, or to those they believed to be cleaner, 133* on the pretext that 'they would keep things longer. She wanted each to be given the things she needed without respect of persons, and for the Sisters to use them to the end, as much as possible.

She wanted us all to be very cheerful, and told us that when we had laughed at recreation, the spirit was more inclined for prayer. She did not want, however, that we let ourselves be carried away by a certain freedom of an imperfect nature, which says whatever comes to mind, but that we recreate ourselves holy, innocently and openly.

She sometimes asked the Sisters what they had thought of the prayer; she didn't want people to talk to her about news or things of the world; she didn't want either weaknesses and baseness to appear, speaking of the inconveniences of the weather, or of something that concerns the body. She didn't want people talking about the Sisters in their absence, and not wanting people to be so delicate as to poke fun at little things they say while laughing; that it was no more necessary to take heed of oneself at recreation than at any other time; but that it was necessary to offer oneself to Our Lord, by entering it, then simply recreate oneself.

She almost always entertained the recreation of spiritual things and virtue, but in such a pleasant way that one could not get tired of it. Sometimes she told us stories from the Holy Bible, other times she made us ask questions about how to practice virtue; she said that outside recreation, even though it was during this hour, one could not speak without license, and although she had given it general to those who go to wash the bowls, nevertheless, she wanted it to be given to her. would ask again each day (134. This must be considered not as a necessary thing, but as a particular practice of subjugation which this venerable Mother demanded of her daughters in a foundation still very new).

She strongly encouraged the Sisters to show great charity towards each other, and to say nothing that might cause pain to their neighbour; if one of the Sisters spoke well to her of another, she was careful to return it to the one to whom it touched, in order to bind her ever more closely to the other; if someone had made some fault which deserved her to reprimand her, she spoke to her beforehand to dispose her and incite her by herself to ask for humiliation, which she did so effectively, with a heart so maternal, that one desired it rather than apprehending it.

When she saw someone sad or indisposed, or in temptation, she prayed a lot to God for her, and had her called to console and strengthen her. ; but she allowed two or three days to pass, and even though they bothered her about it beforehand, she said that when she did it sooner, it did not profit them, being still in their reason and passion, and that for the ordinary Our Lord consoled souls after having left them three days in suffering; and gave us as an example what Our Lord did to those people who followed him three days ago, when he said: Misereor super turban.

135*

APPENDIX

137*

holy recreations

by Fr. Jérôme Gratien

(Extract from the work of Fr. Gratien entitled: Dilucidario de verdadero spiritu.)

This work of Father Gratien entitled: Exposition of the true spiritual life, published in Spain in 1608, has not. been translated into our language. We extract from it this chapter, which makes known in detail some of the pious customs practiced during the recreations by our Mothers of Spain, and brought to France by our foundresses, as one sees it by the chronicles of these two countries. We know what esteem our holy Mother and her first daughters, the venerable Mother Anne of Jesus in particular, had for Fr. Gratien; we will therefore see with pleasure some pages of this holy religious alongside those of our Spanish Mothers.

CELESTIAL CONVERSATION

CH. XIX

Celestial conversations and holy recreations, useful recreations and honest and meritorious pastimes which the servants of God take among themselves, without distracting themselves from prayer and without losing any fervor of spirit.

The string of a bow cannot always be taut, and it is necessary, as Saint John the Evangelist himself assured, to give the solicitudes of the mind and the activity of the thought some relaxation 138* some truce, relaxation and rest. Cicero says on this subject: “Give some respite and some relaxation to your solicitudes, nothing can subsist without a time of respite. The birds themselves, during the great work of building their nests, take their hours of rest and, landing at a short distance, enjoy themselves by singing. The painter, according to Seneca, would not make a finished painting if he painted tirelessly and without ever having fun. The lands would produce less if they were constantly plowed, and if they were not given a year's rest from time to time. Life could not sustain itself if the sun always shone, and there was no night to indulge in sleep. If the soldier fought continuously, his forces would abandon him and he would be defeated. The musical instrument would malfunction if the strings were still pulled from it. Finally, the coachman would drive his chariot badly if he constantly held back the reins of his horses. Thus, as Pliny remarks, it is necessary to give some respite from worries, some respite. to the works of the mind and, some rest to the thought, so that the mind may be more vigorous, the thought more durable, the activity more efficient and the work more fruitful.

But what can be the relaxations of the servants of God and in particular of the religious, to whom it is said: Oportet semper orare et numquam deficere, one must always pray and never get tired”; and elsewhere : " Sine intermissione orate, pray without ceasing”? It is no small difficulty, in fact, to find recreations and relaxations which put a respite from work without weakening the mind, which are a useful pastime and not a waste of time, and which do not do not bring matters of scruple to the soul by giving rise to idle words, actions or thoughts; because men, we know, will have to give an account on the day of judgment for the least idle word that they will have said. I therefore find no better recreation, more pleasant relaxation, pleasure and pass for the spirit. more useful time, of sweeter joy, than what we call celestial conversation, by means of which the riches of the soul are preserved and increased, instead of falling away. To understand clearly what this celestial conversation consists of and to learn how to practice it, we will consider twelve orders of Blesseds in heaven. (1. The word Blessed (Bienaventurados) means here, in a general way, all those who are in possession of eternal beatitude: the Most Holy Trinity who possesses it in itself, and the elect who enjoy it by participation ). The Most Holy Trinity holds the first rank there and forms the first order. The humanity of Jesus Christ Our Lord forms the second; the most holy Virgin Mary, the third; the angels of heaven, the fourth; the Patriarchs, the fifth; the Prophets, the sixth; the Apostles, the seventh; the Evangelists, the eighth; the Martyrs, the ninth; the Confessors, the tenth; the Virgins, the eleventh; the Holy Women and all the other Blesseds of heaven, the twelfth. According to these orders of the Blessed, there are here below twelve kinds of celestial recreations, of which we are going to speak in this chapter.

But before dealing in detail with these 140* conversations and these spiritual relaxations, I want to point out three things. It is, in the first place, that there must be in the conversations of the servants of God nothing which gives matter to scruple or sin, for otherwise they would no longer be recreations, but idle and prejudicial conversations. One should therefore hear neither slander, nor oaths, nor harsh or arrogant words, none of those disputes which produce impatience or anger. No one should be offended there, no painful words should be said to each other: one should avoid, in a word, all remarks which, far from relaxing the mind, only serve to tire him out by causing him remorse. Secondly, the interview should not require sustained attention, but on the contrary should relax the mind. It is therefore not necessary to keep the order and arrangement that we are going to give here during recreation time; otherwise, it would no longer be a rest, but a work, and what we are trying to do at the moment is to learn how to pass the time in talks which recreate the soul without tiring the mind. Thirdly, for the reason that we have just said, it is not necessary either that the soul cling to the words that are said at recreation as it would at prayer, nor even that she applies her attention to it, lest the recreations tire and become importunate. These three points stated, we say that, as there are twelve orders of inhabitants of the abode of beatitude, so there are twelve kinds of celestial recreations.

The first form of spiritual recreation is done in honor and to the glory of the Most Holy Trinity: 141* it is that of divine praise. Each in turn says: I praise God, Where. I glorify God, Or : Blessed be God, etc., because he is good. Another : because he is holy, etc., and we go thus discoursing on the excellences of God, on his attributes, on his works, and on the other subjects for which he is worthy of praise. All respond: Me too ; and a penance is imposed on him who does not answer, or repeats what another has already said, or answers out of place. So time passes pleasantly and joyfully.

The praises and excellences of Jesus Christ are said in the same way, each citing one of the attributes or names of this adorable Saviour, or one of the figures that relate to him, or even one of the benefits we have received from it, such as: Blessed be Jesus Christ, the sun of divine justice, etc. All respond: Amen. In this way, everything related to our divine Master is recalled to our memory.

The third kind of celestial conversation consists in praising and celebrating the praises of the Virgin Mary, naming her titles and the figures that represent her, one saying for example : Virgo is the moon full of grace, another : She is the woman clothed with the sun. All respond: Bless her! Thus maintains a celestial conversation through the praises of the most holy Virgin.

The fourth spiritual recreation, which is that of thanksgiving, is done in honor and to the glory of the Angels. Everyone gives thanks to God for someone for the benefits he has received from it, and everyone responds: Me too.

142* The fifth is that of spiritual thoughts. The person presiding over the interview proposes a question on a matter of piety; each one says his opinion on the proposed point, without repeating what has been said by another, and the one who presides develops the thought of each one. This is a very good and very useful recreation. Suppose, for example, that we ask what a soul should do to revive its fervor when it sees itself lukewarm in prayer. One says: I believe it will be good to use loving words and address them to Jesus Christ, or else to use ejaculatory prayers. Another : It seems to me that the memory of benefits received is what usually moves the mind the most, etc.. And so on.

Stories and narratives, provided they deal with good and profitable things, are of great use in keeping up holy conversation. This can be done in honor of the Prophets.

One can, in honor and glory of the Apostles, share in a recreation all the kingdoms of the world. Each chooses his own and makes himself the procurator of this kingdom, asking the others in his favor for some prayer or some good deed.

The eighth spiritual recreation is done in honor and to the glory of the Martyrs. It is to produce desires to suffer death for Jesus Christ, each indicating a different kind of martyrdom. For example, suppose someone says: I would like to be beheaded for Jesus Christ, another : I would like to be sawn for him, etc. And all respond: Me too. He who repeats what another has already said does a penance by giving a pledge, and then recites some 143* prayers for the souls in purgatory. The goodness of God is so great that he receives these desires and rewards them, because what the mouth utters without the heart denying it is an act of the will.

The ninth interview, which is done in honor of the Confessors, relates to cases of conscience and is of great benefit. Each proposes a case by going through the commandments, and the others give their opinion on the same subject.

The tenth recreation is that of good words, in honor of the Virgins; each expresses in it some good resolution concerning the service of God, or some good desire touching the practice of a virtue.

The eleventh celestial conversation is very pleasant: it is that of the interior and exterior acts of the virtues. Out of seven or eight of those who are at recreation, each chooses a particular virtue. When the person presiding over the interview makes a sign with his hands to designate one of these virtues, the person who has chosen the virtue thus designated names it aloud; when, on the contrary, the one who presides appoints it himself, the one who has chosen it makes the sign without speaking. Suppose, for example, that joining the hands is the sign of prayer. When the one who has chosen prayer sees that the one who presides joins his hands, he says: Prayer. If, on the contrary, the one who presides says: Prayer, he who has chosen prayer joins his hands in silence, to show that this is what he desires.

Finally, martyrdom is an excellent spiritual recreation, in which external tortures are represented. One is the character of the tyrant, another that of the executioner, a third that of the martyr 144* who is put to death for Jesus Christ; and he must strive to conceive the same feelings as if his life were really taken away. It was in similar practices that the ancient Discalced Carmelites exercised themselves, as Surius relates in the life of Saint Febronie.