From Sister Marie-Dosithée Guérin to her brother.
V+J.
From our Mother of Le Mans
the 25 June 65
Dear brother
I congratulate you on your punctuality in writing to me. If you have nothing new to tell me, I have: Zélie came to see me last Tuesday when I least expected it, she came alone, the whole family is well, your little goddaughter is charming and very witty, she is the one we love best.
You are already worried about your future, you have to put everything in the hands of good Providence who will arrange everything for the best.
I am not delighted with the *[v°] acquaintance of your Priest. If he is as you say he is, I advise you not to associate with him; you tell me that he will arrive at a fine post: do you know what the fine post of the priest and of the religious is? It is to follow Jesus Christ poor, humiliated and suffering; when everyone would say otherwise, you should not believe it, act differently, it is human prudence, and if you are ever a priest (which would not be impossible for God) you will be a good priest and will renounce all human greatness. What folly to allow oneself to be carried away by wanting to go up, while one goes up while going down; it is pity to see noble creatures wasting time chasing after vain illusions; when they could get there, they would end so quickly. My dear friend, if it were given to me to make you open your eyes to the vanity of this false brilliance, how happy I would be! What worries I would spare you!. . . but no, you are going to engulf yourself *[2r°] like the others in this vast sea of disappointments which awaits all those who put their hope in the vain goods of this world. . . And it will be a lost existence like that of most men; an existence which could be so noble, so glorious, so useful, will have passed entirely into illusion! God placed man a little below the Angels; but oh woe he does not place himself much below the brute, satisfying all his appetites with an ardor that nothing can stop. We have in our hearts an insatiable desire for glory, and this desire is good, but it must be directed like all our good aspirations, because it is not forgivable that we kill ourselves to run after a glory that for the ordinary one does not reach, or which must end so quickly, instead of seeking an eternal one which one is certainly sure to acquire. But when I see you throwing yourself into all these deviations, I feel a real sorrow, because I love you very much and I would like to save you a lot of trouble, finally think about it my dear child, you are at a moment of the very decisive life and on which *[2r° tv] your even eternal fate depends.
All yours
Sr. M. Dosithee Guérin
of the Von Ste Marie
