1. EXERCISES

for the actions to be done from waking up to entering the choir.

1° By waking up.

As soon as you hear the sign of rising, as if it were the voice of Our Lord, telling you that it is enough to rest; that you have to get up to begin to serve him again and accomplish his holy will, you

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kneel on your bed, make the sign of the Cross over you, and say:

“My God, I wake up at daybreak to think of you, to love you and to serve you. Here I am, O my God, ready to do whatever you please; your holy will will be mine; I will observe it with all my heart all this day.”

2° Getting out of bed.

Remember the great love by which the Son of God, at the moment of his Incarnation, came out of the bosom of his Father, and came to earth to subject himself to our miseries; in honor and union of this same love, get out of bed quickly and courageously, and as soon as you have dismounted, kneel down for a while to worship God again, that all your first actions may be one homage to his divine greatness, always uniting them to those that Our Lord has made here below on earth.

Then you will dress with diligence and fervor of spirit, and with a great desire to

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present yourselves before God at prayer, in order to draw from it the graces and the strength necessary to serve him more and more.

3° By getting dressed.

“Inwardly prepare my soul, Lord, as I prepare my body to go to the Choir; clothe me with the fervor of your divine Spirit and the precious gifts of your grace.”

If you want to take interior applications on everything, to dress yourself, you can use the following:

4° By taking her Robe.

“Cloth me, my God, with holy religious habits, so that I may appear before you as my habit and my profession demand.”

5° By putting on his Belt.

“Unite me to you; O my Lord, of an intimate union, and attach me to your goodness by the bonds of Charity, whose knot is never broken.

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6° By putting on his Toque.

Think that this whiteness represents to you the purity of conscience that you must have to please God, and say: “O my Lord, grant me the grace to die rather than defile my soul with any sin; cleanse her in your precious Blood, and give me perfect contrition for my trespasses.”

7° By putting on his Scapular.  

“My Lord, grant me the grace to carry with joy and love your yoke and your burden, all the days of my life.”

8° By putting on her Veil.

“My Lord, this veil teaches me that I must die to the world and to myself in order to live only for you; So give me the grace, O my God, that there remains in me no remnant of this miserable life which prevents me from uniting myself to you.

9° By putting on his coat.

“Spotless Lamb of God, put on my

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soul of that purity and that whiteness with which those who follow you are adorned.

10° Going to the Choir.

Being decently dressed, you will go modestly and diligently to the choir, with emulation to find yourself there first, in order to have the blessing of the Tutelary Angel of the Convent.

When the'Angelus will sound, you will say it as devoutly as you can, to honor the Mysteries of the Incarnation, Death, Passion and glorious Resurrection of Our Lord.

Before entering the Choir, you will take holy water, in a feeling of contrition, interiorly praying Our Lord to cleanse your soul of all that there is in it that may displease Him.

11° Entering the Choir.

After having taken three or four steps, you will make a deep bow to the Blessed Sacrament, and, turning around, you will make a half to the Mother Prioress, or to the Sub-

Priory

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in his absence, and then you will go, in your place, to your knees.

12° Being in the Choir.

You will make a cross with the thumb on the forehead, on the mouth and on the heart, while saying these words: “Per signum Crucis, de inimicis nostris libera nos, Deus noster.”

And then you will make a great sign of the cross over yourself, kiss the earth and deeply adore Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Most Blessed Sacrament.

Then you will make the general direction of all the actions of the day, if you have not done it before going to the Choir.

“Great God, who gave me being and life, damaged in the depths of my nothingness, I adore you with all my heart and recognize you as my God, my Creator and my sovereign Lord, on whom I depend in everything and without which I can do nothing. I thank you for all the benefits that I have received up to this day from your paternal goodness, particularly for the care that you

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you had from me during this night, and from the fact that you still give me time to do penance and to advance in perfection. I very humbly ask your forgiveness for all the sins I have committed; I hate them with all my heart, for the sole reason of your love, and beg you to do me the grace to die rather than ever offend you. I offer you all that I am, all that I have, all that I can, forever and in eternity, but particularly today; I direct to your honor all my thoughts, my words, my works, all the movements, feelings and affections of my heart, and desire that the whole be consecrated to your eternal glory; may it be so many acts of praise, adoration and love towards you. I consecrate myself with all my heart to your service, with a desire to employ all the moments of this day in the faithful practice of my Rules, of obedience, and generally in the execution of your divine will; but, my God, I recognize that I can do nothing without

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your grace; do not refuse it to me, I beg you, and make me glorify you eternally.

“I also offer you the love, the glory and the praises which will be rendered to you today in heaven and on earth; and, to make the actions of this day more pleasant for you, I offer them to you in union with those that my Savior Jesus Christ did while in the world. I would like to do them, if it were possible for me, with the same purity of intention, love and perfection that his holy humanity accomplished his. I still accept, for your love, all the mortifications and pains that you will send me. I renounce all temptations from the enemies of my salvation. I disavow all vanities, movements of self-love, self-seeking, and finally everything that could displease you, oh my god, and propose to me, by means of your holy grace, to be faithful to you.

“Blessed Virgin, Queen of heaven and earth, treasurer of the grace and hope of

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All Religious of this Order, I dedicate and consecrate myself especially to you, with a desire to serve and honor you in all that I will think, say and do throughout this day and throughout my life. I beg you, O my very dear Mother, to keep me always in your singular protection, to guide my steps in all the practices of this holy Religion, and to give me a happy perseverance in it until the last day of my life.

“And you, my Father Saint Joseph, protector of this Order, our Mother Saint Thérèse and my other Patrons NN, I conjure you to continue your special favors to me.

"My holy Guardian Angel, I also beg you to take care of my conduct and to continue always to assist this poor sinner."

When you won't have time to make this direction before the Come, Sancte Spiritus, you can do it at the beginning of the prayer, which cannot be better started than by this action.

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2. MENTAL PRAYER.

Preliminary instruction for learning to do mental prayer,

according to the spirit of Saint Francis de Sales.

Our Sisters will be very careful to make good use of this hour, as the holiest and most useful of the day; for it is in prayer that the soul is nourished and regains new strength; it is there that she rekindles, every morning, the spiritual fire which must burn ceaselessly in the sanctuary of her heart; it is on this finally that all the success of the day depends, good or bad; and to see how a nun spends the morning prayer, one can judge whether she should be fervent or cowardly the rest of the day. Thus, they will be careful not to let themselves go to boredom or sleep, and will try to be well applied.

Mental prayer has three parts.

The first is called Preparation, which consists of three acts: 1° to place oneself in the presence of God; 2° ask him for the grace of

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to pray well; 3° to represent to oneself the subject which one must meditate on.

The second part is the Meditation, which also consists of three acts: 1° to make considerations and reasonings on the subject; (2) to excite in oneself holy affections; 3° form resolutions to do such good or to flee from such evil.

The third part is the Conclusion, which again consists of three acts: 1° to thank God for the good success of the prayer; 2° to offer him the good resolutions that were taken there; 3° ask him for the grace to practice them.

After the Prayer is finished, we make the Spiritual Bouquet.

I^Features PART OF PRAYER.

PREPARATION.

l° Put yourself in the presence of God.

We put ourselves in the presence of God, vividly picturing him in one of four ways:

1° As present in everything and everywhere, and

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filling everything in heaven and earth, and we being in him like a sponge in the sea.

2. As having it in our heart in a particular way, namely: by grace, as the life of our soul and body.

3° As present in heaven, looking down on all men and casting their eyes particularly on us.

4° As really present in our midst, but in a well hidden way, in the Blessed Sacrament of the altar.

Having placed oneself in the presence of God, in one of these ways, one performs three acts: 1° of faith, firmly believing this presence of God; 2° of Humility, recognizing himself unworthy to appear before the Majesty of God; 3° of Adoration, recognizing him for his sovereign Lord, looking at himself before his divine Majesty, sometimes as a slave before his King, or as a criminal before his Judge, or as the prodigal Son of the Gospel before his father, or in any other way, as the subject of the meditation requires.

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2° Asking God to pray well.

We invoke the assistance of the Holy Spirit in heart and mouth, saying: Veni, Sancte Spiritus, etc., or some other similar prayer. We also ask for the assistance of the Blessed Virgin, of her Good Angel, of her Patron and of the Saints to whom we have a particular devotion, as also of our Father Saint Joseph and our Mother Saint Thérèse. The better to obtain what one asks for, one performs an act of self-distrust and trust in God, and one of resignation to his holy will, protesting that we are only seeking, in this as in anything else, his glory and his good pleasure.

3° Se represent the subject to be meditated on in prayer.

The representation of the subject of the Meditation is done in two ways: 1° when the subject is sensitive and visible, like the Mystery of the Nativity, the Crucifixion and the like, we imagine that we are at the place where the thing is is made, or that it takes place at the very place where

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one is; 2° if the subject is insensible and invisible, as would be a virtue or a vice, one considers the goods which come from a virtue and the evils of the contrary vice, and one takes the most effective means to carry out the particular acts of the same virtue and to overcome the obstacles to achieve it.

II^e PART OF PRAYER.

MEDITATION.

1° Make considerations and reasoning on the subject of prayer.

They must tend to penetrate the essence, the nature and the circumstances of the subject that one has chosen, weighing and deepening it as one can, in order to know, by good reasons and by clear truths, in what consists such virtue, the esteem that must be made of it and the means of acquiring it. After we have done what we could by reasoning, it is appropriate to pause to allow the Holy Spirit to speak to our heart, saying to him with the prophet Samuel: Speak, Lord, your

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servant listens to you. If he does us the favor of answering us, giving us some new light or holy movement, we must receive this grace with respect and gratitude and stop there for as long as we feel we can profit from it, and then continue our subject; if he does not lend us a favorable ear, let us humble ourselves in his presence and resume our meditation.

2° Arouse in oneself holy Affections.

The principal affections are the love of God, the admiration of his bounties, the recognition, the trust and the abandonment of oneself in the hands of God, the adoration, the compassion for the pains of Our Lord Jesus- Christ, contrition, desires, joy, fear, abhorrence of sin and self. By reflecting on his past life, in relation to the subject we are meditating on, we recognize the irregularities in his conduct and we receive from it a holy shame and a humble and loving contrition. One can also excite the affections by some ejaculatory prayers, as Saint Augustine did by this one:

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My God, that I know you, and that I know myself!

and Saint Francis: My God, who are you, and who am I?

3° Former Resolves to do such good or to flee from such evil.

They must be made sometimes on our main duties towards God, towards our neighbor and towards ourselves, sometimes on our main needs: such as our bad inclinations, our disordered passions, our bad habits, the occasions for sin, the impediments to our advancement, the virtues which we lack and which are proper to our state and condition. The main fruit of meditation consists in effective resolutions: thus we must always apply ourselves to making some of them and not be satisfied with making them in general, but in particular, according to our needs.

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III^e PART OF PRAYER.

CONCLUSION.

1° Thank God for the good success of the prayer.

We thank God by recognizing that it is he who gives us the good thoughts and resolutions, and, for want of this recognition, he often withdraws us from his graces and does not give us those which he had prepared for us; we can invite the Blessed Virgin, our good Angel and some particular Saints, to help us make this thanks, so that it may be more pleasing to God.

2° Offer to God the good resolutions taken in prayer.

This Act is no less powerful in obtaining gifts from God than thanksgiving, when done in the spirit of humility and trust. It is therefore necessary to offer him the affections, the resolutions and the good sentiments which he was pleased to bestow on us. And it would be good to

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pray to the Blessed Virgin, our good Angel and some particular Saints, to make some offering for us, in view of our impotence.

3° Ask God for the grace to practice the good Resolutions taken in prayer.

This Act is the most essential of prayer: this is why more time must be spent on it than on the other two. Address yourself to God by a loving colloquy, to ask him for your needs, and the graces and virtues which are necessary to you, and pray to him to bless your resolutions, so that you can execute them faithfully. For this purpose, implore the help of the Blessed Virgin, of your good Angel and of the Saints.

If the hour strikes before the prayer is finished, one should diligently take one's particular resolutions, and briefly perform the three concluding acts, as has been said: for, as far as one can, one should not omit, particularly the request.

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3. SPIRITUAL BOUQUET.

1° Preliminary instruction.

To make this bouquet well, you have to do a little review of everything that happened in the prayer, to notice the faults, and ask forgiveness from God; and also to see the main lights and affections that one has had, in order to remember them sometimes during the day, as those who have been in a beautiful garden do not leave it willingly without taking some flowers, to smell them and hold them on oneself, throughout the day. But what is most important in this regard is faithfulness in putting into practice one's good resolutions.

If you want prayer and meditation to be useful and profitable to you, always have in your heart an ardent desire to serve God, in the way that his Majesty wills, and that will please him more; and when you do so, employ your whole heart, desires and affections, and remove your mind from all care and embarrassment of temporal affairs, in order to

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pray more earnestly; for humble and fervent prayer penetrates the heavens, and does not return empty.

If, during prayer, distractions happen to you so strong that you find it difficult to withdraw from them, try to put yourself back in the presence of God, and use a few short and fiery words to recall your spirit, and unite him to God, as are those of David: Do not cast me out, Lord, from before your face. Look to me, Lord, to help me.

Form a strong resolve not to voluntarily stop at any distraction. If it happens that, without thinking about it, you find yourself distracted, go back immediately to the subject of your meditation; if it is interrupted a thousand times by distraction, go back as many times to your first thoughts, without losing courage.

If droughts and aridities occur to you, behave with great humility and patience, gently bearing the boredom and pain that may befall you; confess your unworthiness, and do not be troubled

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point ; your Prayer will not be less pleasing to God. If you practice this holy Exercise for his pure love, and not for your own satisfaction, you will be able to say in the time of desolation: I did not start this Meditation for my pleasure and contentment, but for the pure love of God; it will also be by this same love that I will complete it, aided by his holy grace, although I find no taste in it.

And continue to hold yourselves in a devout countenance before God, honoring him in your silence, like those servants who stand before the King with respect, without the King saying a word to them.

Such is the explanation of mental prayer and its parts, which it is good to know and to understand well in order to practice it fruitfully, until it pleases Our Lord to inspire you with others. higher manners. However, the souls that God sometimes leads in extraordinary ways often need to use the first practices, when God holds them in the suffering of droughts and aridities, to humble them and make them know that all they have

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comes from him, since they find themselves so destitute when he ceases to communicate his special favors to them.

You must also be warned that, if it sometimes happens to you that immediately after the preparation your affection is completely moved in God, you must follow this impression, without stopping at the method which is given to you; for, although, ordinarily, meditation should precede affections and resolutions, if, however, the Holy Spirit gives you affections before consideration, you must follow them, since consideration is only done to move the affection; for it is a general rule that the affections should never be withheld, but given rise to them when they arise. It is the same for the Thanksgiving, the Offering and the Prayer, which can be done among the considerations, and which it is not necessary to retain either that the other affections, although for the conclusion of the Meditation it is necessary take them back.

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2° Preparatory acts for prayer.

At morning prayer, after having said the Veni, Sancte Spiritus, we say the following prayer in chorus, to give ourselves to the Blessed Virgin, and through her to her Son:

“Sanctissima et Immaculata Virgo Maria, Dei Mater, ego te hodie in Matrem et Dominam, Patronam et Advocatam eligo; corpus meum, et animam meam, vitam et mortem, ac quidquid meum est, quomodocumque deponens in benedictis tuis manibus. Suscipe me, o beatissima coelorum Regina, in ancillam tuam, et effice ut Jesu Christi Filii tui ancilla sim, et maneam in perpetuum. Amen."

(100-day indulgence applicable to souls in Purgatory, granted by NSP Pope Pius IX to our Holy Order, April 4, 1865.)

THE SAME PRAYER IN FRENCH.

Most Holy and Immaculate Virgin Mary, Mother of God, I N. take you today for Mother, Mistress, Patroness and Advocate; placing in your blessed hands my body, my

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soul, my life, my death and all that is mine in any way. Receive me, O glorious Queen of Heaven, for your humble servant, and make me be and remain forever that of Jesus Christ your Son. So be it.

3° Act of Faith, Adoration, Humility and Contrition.

“My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are present here; I adore you with all my heart; I recognize myself unworthy to appear before you, I who am only a puny creature, who have so often offended you; but, my God, since you do not reject a contrite and humiliated heart, I offer you mine, outraged with pain at having been unfaithful to you. Forgive me, my God, I beg of you, and grant me the grace not to offend you again”.

4° Act of Offering and Asking.

“I offer you, O my God, this Prayer that I am going to make, to accomplish your

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holy will, and for your pure love, wanting to seek there only your glory. I unite it to that which my Lord Jesus Christ made, being on earth, so that it may be pleasing to you, and that the perfection of his make up for the defect of mine. I beg you to grant me the assistance of your grace, confessing that of myself I cannot have a single good thought. Teach me, O my god, what I must tell you, and do not allow such a holy exercise to be useless to me. grant me the grace to draw from my subject the affections, the fruits and the resolutions that you desire, and that I accomplish them according to your holy will.

5° Act of renunciation of distractions, and acceptance of pain.

“My God, I renounce the distractions that may come to me during this holy action, disavowing all that could divert me from your holy presence; I submit myself to all the droughts, pains of body and mind, that I may feel there,

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entirely resigning to your holy will. Blessed Virgin, obtain for me the graces that I need to perform this prayer well. Our Father Saint Joseph, my holy Guardian Angel, our Mother Saint Thérèse, and my holy Protectors, help me with your intercessions, I beg you.”

After having performed these Acts, or others according to one's devotion, one will apply oneself to one's subject of prayer, as has been said.

On leaving the Choir (at the first stroke of the Hours), one can go and cover one's bed or visit some hermitages, or do a few other little things, and one returns to the Choir as soon as one hears the ringing.

4. OF THE DIVINE OFFICE.

FOR HOURS.

One enters the Choir for the Hours, as it was said for the Prayer. It must always be with great modesty, inner recollection, lowered sight, representing oneself 29*

the great action that we are going to do, which is to please God; to do on earth what the angels and saints do in heaven, where they are always occupied in singing the praises of God, and in rendering honor to his divine Majesty.

During the Office, if you understand the meaning of the words, you can apply yourself to them.

Have a loving and respectful attention in the presence of God and of Our Lord Jesus Christ to the Blessed Sacrament, before which you are, occupying yourself in loving it, praising its goodness and its other perfections; humiliating and confounding you in front of him, admiring how he deigns to allow you to do such a lofty exercise, which befits angels and saints, rather than a poor sinner. If in these holy thoughts your spirit is inflamed in the love of Our Lord, or in other outbursts of affection towards his divine goodness and mercy, you can stop there, and you will have been sufficiently satisfied, even with more of perfection than if you had taken note of the meaning of the words.

Think sometimes of uniting your prayers with the

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praises which the Son of God renders and will render eternally to his Father; unite them to the intention and love of the Blessed Virgin, who is taken up into heaven, in the contemplation of her sovereign good. Unite them to the praises which the Angels and Saints continually give him, and to those which are given to him on earth by all his creatures. Unite also with all the praises which are given to God by the suffering souls in purgatory.

Finally, desire that all that is in heaven, in earth and in hell, and especially all that is in you, give glory, praise and blessing to Him who cannot be praised and glorified enough.

You can, if you want, use, during the Office, the little Interior Discussion on the Passion, which we put here, or some other, according to your devotion, and which will help you the most to recollect yourself.

At Matins, you can, for example, contemplate Our Lord in the Garden of Olives, praying, covered in a sweat of blood, and suffering the most cruel agony.

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At Lauds, betrayed by Judas, bound by executioners, abandoned by the Apostles.

Premium, led with a thousand insults to the tribunals of Annas, Caiaphas, Pilate and Herod.

At Third, scourged, crowned with thorns, clad in a scarlet cloak, having, instead of a scepter, a reed in his hand.

In Sext, condemned to death on the Cross, and carrying on his shoulders, to Calvary, the wood on which he was going to be tied.

At None, nailed to the Cross, raised thereon, between heaven and earth, where, after having remained three hours, and having pronounced seven words, having been, in his thirst, watered with gall and vinegar, he dies.

At Vespers, detached from the Cross by the care of Joseph of Arimathea, and received into the arms of his Mother.

At Compline, buried, deposited in a tomb and descending to Limbo.

These are quite sufficient subjects to occupy ourselves with in a holy way during the Office. We will take the one to which we feel more devotion, or even others, according to what will help the most to

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collect. But we must remember that the main attention we must have is to pronounce it well, to sing the Office with fervor; to mark accents, take pauses, and observe the ceremonies that are ordered, without sparing oneself, nor listening, as much as possible, to the little inconveniences one may have, and taking care not to let oneself go to negligence, since it is written: Cursed is the man who does the work of God carelessly.

5. OF THE TIME WE HAVE TO TAKE TO MAKE ITS CELL.

After the Hours, one will go and cover his bed and tidy his cell, unless some particular occupation prevents it. This operation must be carried out diligently, and try, if possible, to only take about three or four Misery, and on the days we sweep it (which are Wednesday and Saturday), make sure to have it done in half an hour.

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Our dear Sisters will consider their cells as so many places sanctified by the good works of several holy Religious who lived there before them. How many fervent prayers were presented to God there! How many times the Holy Spirit descended on them, accompanied by their Guardian Angels, to fill them with his graces! This small retreat is therefore more honorable than the Palace of the Kings; it must therefore be held in respect, like the temple where one adores God in spirit and in truth.

As outward neatness is a mark of purity of heart, if one sees a badly arranged cell, one can judge that the spirit of the one who dwells there is dissipated; otherwise she could not see this derangement without remedying it. For a nun who is very attentive to herself and desirous of her perfection brings out, in everything she does, the image of what she is within.

These are the considerations which should lead to keeping one's cell very clean. And, while we are doing it, we can occupy our mind with some good thought, like to imagine

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the little Jesus cleaning the poor house of his father and his mother in Nazareth, with a humility and an altogether divine simplicity; or imagine seeing the Blessed Virgin setting up her little room with angelic modesty while she was living in the temple.

Being in his cell after the Hours, we can, if we want, say this Prayer:

“Lord my God, I thank you with all my heart for the blessing you have kindly given to my exercises this morning. It was you who inspired me with the lights and the feelings that I received there. I beg you to keep them in my soul, along this day, and to give me the grace to practice them in the occasions. Grant, Lord, that through them I may preserve myself from dissipation in my actions. And, if on my part there has been laziness and languor, I beg you to forgive me and not to refuse me your graces as a punishment, but rather to continue them to me, in order to behave well today. in your holy presence.”

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6. WORK.

Work is one of the main exercises of monastic life: it is also strongly recommended in our holy Rule, in order to avoid idleness and the temptations of the devil, who ordinarily enters by this door. The ancient Fathers of the deserts, whose example we must follow, occupied themselves sometimes in prayer, sometimes in work.

A nun must therefore be careful never to be idle; on the contrary, she must take care to always have some occupation, either in her cell, or in her office, or in common; and submit to that which obedience commands him, without seeking his own satisfaction therein. She should occupy herself in a way that does not stifle the inner spirit and recollection, but act, in all things, with great peace of soul, retaining the freedom to raise it to God by aspiration or by some good thought, like the memory of the spirit in which the Blessed Virgin labored in the temple; modeling himself entirely on her;

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imitating her silence, which she interrupted only for necessary things, her intention, her devotion, her fervor, her diligence and all her other virtues and dispositions.

When her work will be painful and boring, she will remember the great fatigues and weariness that the Son of God suffered to bring about our salvation; and she will animate her courage to bear these sorrows and fatigues with this prayer:

« My God, I offer you this work; do me the favor of being agreeable to you there; to remain always in your holy presence, attentive to your inspirations and interior visits, and to behave there with fervor, for your greater glory, and the profit of my soul. Blessed Virgin, please assist me with your intercession.”

7. OF THE HOLY MASS.

The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is the heart of devotion, the soul of piety, and the center of the Christian Religion; it is a mystery that

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understands in itself the abyss of divine charity; it is a compendium of all the works that God has done and wrought for man. Through this Holy Sacrifice, God abundantly communicates his graces to us. There is no work holier, more useful, or more meritorious for us than to assist in it; especially since, offering him to God with the required conditions, we can satisfy all that we owe him, since it is his adorable Son whom we present to him, who is God, like him, and whose merit is infinity. What could he refuse us, making him such a pleasant offering? We must therefore attend Holy Mass with extraordinary devotion, in order to make ourselves worthy of receiving the graces that God wants to communicate to us there.

As you go there, you must fill your minds with the deepest respect, representing to yourselves that you are going to the mountain of Calvary, to witness the cruel and painful death which the Son of God suffered there for our love.

When you are at De Profundis, before entering the Choir, it is necessary to pray to Our Lord, through the intercession of Saint

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Virgin, to purify your heart of all that could displease her, and to give you the graces necessary to make you worthy to assist at this holy Sacrifice; and also the grace to come out of it more ardent in his love than you have been. And for that you will be able to say the following, when you are at De Profundis before Mass:

“My Lord Jesus Christ, who, not being satisfied with having once offered Yourself to the Eternal Father as a sacrifice on the tree of the cross, for our sins, still wishes to renew it on our altars, whenever the priest celebrate Holy Mass, I desire to attend this divine Sacrifice, and to adore you there with the blessed spirits who accompany you there; purify my heart and make me worthy to attend this elevated Mystery; grant me the grace to come out of it more ardent in your service than I have been hitherto. Blessed Virgin, who was present at the sacrifice of your dear Son on the cross, cause me to remain so attentive and so devout, that all may be to the glory of God, and for the salvation of my soul.

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Being in the Choir, after having adored the Blessed Sacrament, you will offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass to the Eternal Father, to satisfy your obligation, for all the needs of the Church, for your particular needs, for all poor sinners, for the conversion of heretics, for the souls in purgatory, and finally for all the people for whom you have an obligation to pray. You can do it in the following way:

“My God, desiring to satisfy my obligation to hear Holy Mass, I unite my intention, my adorations and my prayers to those of the Church and of the Priest. I offer you, by his hands, the sacrifice of your only Son, in thanksgiving for the benefit of my redemption, and in recognition of all the other graces that I have received from your goodness. I give and sacrifice myself entirely to your divine Majesty. Eternal Father, I beg you, in favor of this Lamb immolated on our altars, to forgive all the sins that are committed daily in the world. Have compassion on my poor languid and full soul

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blemishes; forgive them, O my God, and grant me the grace to correct them. I conjure you also, for the love which led you to give us your Son, and which led him to give himself to us on our altars, to exalt your holy Church, and to preserve this Order of Mount Carmel in the perfection where it should be; to have pity on all the infidel nations, on all the peoples who live in heresy or in schism, on many bad Christians who live in oblivion of their salvation, on all those for whom I am obliged to pray, or who desire it from me, and finally from all the souls in Purgatory, to whom I beg you to give relief and rest.”

After this offering, you will say the I confess with the Priest, in a feeling of contrition for all your sins, praying Our Lord to wash your soul in the precious blood which flowed from his veins, when he made his prayer in the Garden of Olives; and, during Mass, unless you have some particular attraction, you will do well to apply yourself to

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to think devoutly of some circumstance of the death and passion of the Son of God, this divine mystery being a vivid representation of it; Our Lord renewing every day on our altars the sacrifice he himself made on the tree of the Cross: which should lead us to stand, during Mass, in a spirit of sacrifice, united, annihilated and lost in Jesus, offering ourselves to him as victims, for whatever he pleases to do with us.

8. SPIRITUAL COMMUNION.

Happy are those who live with such great purity of heart and fidelity that they are worthy of sacramental communion every day; but, as this is rare, one can make up for it by Spiritual Communion, which is done by the desire for this celestial meat. The greater the desire, the more grace one receives; and it sometimes happens that the

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fruit of this Spiritual Communion equals the other by the living faith and the ardent affection of those who practice it. Our Lord sometimes communicates his graces as abundantly, without really coming into our hearts, as when he comes there: did he not give health to the servant of the humble Centurion, who deemed himself unworthy to receive him in his house? ?

It is therefore necessary, during the Mass, to excite oneself to this hunger and this spiritual thirst, and to express one's desires to Our Lord in this way:

“My Lord Jesus Christ, who, by a testimony of your ineffable love, wanted to give you to us in this divine Sacrament, the day before your death, I wish with all my heart to be worthy to receive you today; but I find myself so full of sins, so negligent in your service and so cold in your love, that I confess, with more truth than the Centurion did, that I am not worthy to receive you in my house; but, my Lord, if you will, you can heal me, and it is not necessary for your

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power and your goodness to come sacramentally into my bosom; just say a word, and my soul will be healed; So do me the grace to communicate to me the same effects that you produce in the souls of those who receive you worthily.

We can then do some interior Acts, following the movement of the Holy Spirit, without wanting to be forced to produce this one rather than that one; the most common, however, will be Faith, Contrition, Humility and Love.

It is at the moment when the Priest communicates that we must excite our desires for Spiritual Communion, and show our ardor to Our Lord by a few fiery words, which come more from the heart than from the mouth, such as these:

“Come, my Redeemer, the life and only desire of my soul; come spiritually fill me with you; enter, here is my heart that I open to you; let me know of this divine banquet which you promise to the souls who introduce you into

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their hearts: make me feel that you are my God, my only good, and the only salvation of my soul; unite my heart to yours with an indissoluble knot; make me conform to your holy humanity and make me according to your heart.”

This exercise is very profitable, and it would be good not to omit it when one does not take communion sacramentally; but it demands to be done with great fervor of devotion.

We can, if we want, every day very often take spiritual communion, by forming an Act of Desire, as we have said, and also several times a day offer to God all the Masses that are said by everyone. ; by this means, one participates more abundantly in the fruits of the sacrifice and one draws upon oneself several graces of his divine mercy.

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9. RETIREMENT.

After Mass and after the other hours of Community, as usual, each retires to her little occupations, some in their cells, others in their offices or elsewhere, according as obedience destines them; we put here a little speech on retirement, to make them see the happiness of it and to teach them that, in all the occupations that we can have, we must try to create a solitude in the bottom of our heart, to to converse internally with God.

Retreat and estrangement from the world is one of the main means that lead to perfection and divine union: which should lead our dear Sisters to have a very special esteem for the holy state that Our Lord has given them the grace of embrace, which puts them in continual solitude, by the great separation of commerce from the world; but, to take advantage of such a great advantage, our Sisters must, from the beginning, accustom themselves

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to retreat to the depths of the heart; that the little employments and offices which obedience will give them may not be able to distract them from union with God; they must, moreover, be persuaded that nothing of what is ordained in the Holy Religion can stand in the way of a soul that is very attentive to itself.

To take advantage of solitude, we must consider it in four respects:

1° Solitude is a divine school where the Holy Spirit teaches the soul of those who dwell there with affection. I will lead her, he says, in solitude, and there I will speak to her heart. For his voice is so sweet, that it cannot be heard in the tumult, nor among the trouble of the occupations of the world. Also the Abbé Moyse, questioned by a brother about the means of perfecting himself, answered him that he would retire to solitude, and that she would teach him everything he needed.

2° Solitude is, without a doubt, a paradise filled with spiritual delights and an incomparable sweetness for the Religious who

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cherish their state. If, at the beginning, we find some repugnance or boredom in it, the fidelity we will have to do violence to ourselves for the love of God will finally bring about the grace to savor the pleasure of it and to taste how sweet the Lord is; for they will enjoy his very pleasant conversation and will have, here below, a paradise begun. This is what made the deserts so delicious to our ancient fathers that several of them spent several years there without seeing or hearing anyone. Like Saint Simon Stock, who spent twenty years in the trunk of an oak tree in England, and six in a cave on Mount Carmel, where he was miraculously nourished by a manna brought to him by the Blessed Virgin from heaven.

3. Solitude is the faithful guardian of innocence and purity of heart; for the nun in solitude is exempt from a thousand faults which are committed in the world by so much slander, idle words, vain recreations, superfluous discussions, and often against charity, and other sins and imperfections which are committed by eyes, ears and tongue. So she doesn't have

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more to keep than his heart, where the demon could attack him; and again prayer, prayer, reading and other holy exercises will put her, if she wishes, out of danger. Saint Arsene, being still in the world and asking God, with great fervor, to teach him the way to preserve himself from sin, heard a voice from heaven saying to him: Flee the company of men, and you will be saved. And, as soon as he was in the monastery, there again begging Our Lord to teach him the true way of perfection, he heard another voice saying to him: Flee the company; keep silent ; rest your heart. These are the principles of eternal life.

Saint John the Baptist, sanctified as he was in his mother's womb, withdrew into the desert, for fear of sullying the purity of his soul with the slightest imperfection.

4° Finally, solitude procures for a true nun incomparable benefits: for, withdrawing her from the tumult of the world and from with creatures, it renders her soul susceptible to the lights of heaven; she helps him gather all

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her thoughts towards God and to call her back from the dissipation of her senses, to put her mind in a blessed peace, which often makes her experience the presence of God in the depths of herself; she teaches him the interior dwelling of his heart, by making him practice the exterior dwelling in his solitude; and, to put it all in a word, it transforms man into God, raising him to a very high and holy communication with His Majesty.

Our Sisters, desirous of their perfection, will therefore cherish their solitude very much, since it contains so much good. They will make it their paradise in this world and will hold it as their place of refuge and their element. If the demon begs them to leave it or leads them to be bored there; if he wants to drive them out of this paradise, as Adam and Eve once did, they will generously resist him and think that, if they disregard the spiritual delights of solitude, they justly deserve never to have true devotion.

But it would be a trifle for the body to be in solitude, if the mind were there occupied with

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useless thoughts, or else idle, or bored: for it is necessary to employ oneself in spiritual exercises. One must behave there with great fidelity, doing one's works as obedience demands of each one, and try to make use of such precious time, advancing in divine love, which is greatly increased in the soul by a frequent and intimate conversation with Our Lord, which is practiced in interior retreat, when the soul, banishing, as far as it can, all the thoughts and all the images of creatures, withdraws into herself, and there, all alone, as in a sacred desert, apply herself to God, and to treat with this divine profundis of her salvation and her advancement in perfection and in her love.

So we see that the occupation of a solitary soul is an interior life and one united to God in silence. This silence, which is one of the principal duties of a true Carmelite, must be regulated by the spirit of God, who will make us cut off from our words all that is superfluous and useless, to say only what is necessary pure and simple.

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10. EXAMINATION OF CONSCIENCE BEFORE DINNER.

Whatever good precepts one can give to perform one's actions worthily, one cannot nevertheless do so well that there are not often imperfections in them, because of the infirmity of our nature and the lightness of our imagination, which prevent us from giving ourselves all the attention that would be necessary. This is why it is appropriate to make one's examination at least twice a day, as is customary in all religions, in order to destroy by contrition the faults one may have committed, and to renew one's good intentions. , if they were slowed down by the occupations.

We therefore do it before dinner, so that, if we have lost all or part of the fruit of the morning exercises, we can return to ourselves, and increase our fervor for what remains to be done in the rest of the day. day, and also

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to repair as soon as possible by penitence and contrition the faults that one has committed, not being in the mood to wait until evening to ask pardon of God for an infidelity committed in the morning.

The fruit of the examination of conscience does not consist so much in recognizing how many sins one has committed, as in conceiving a sensible regret at having indulged in them, and in forming a firm resolution to correct oneself, to uproot the sin of our soul, and to avoid a certain lukewarmness in the service of God, which makes us always go backwards, accumulating faults on faults and not doing penance for any: it is a state that we owe a lot to fear and try to avoid by continual vigilance over oneself.

When the exam rings, we will go quickly to the Choir. On entering it, one will make the accustomed inclinations, and, after having adored the Most Blessed Sacrament, one will raise one's spirit to God, placing oneself in his presence, and asking him for the lights necessary to know in what way one has offended him; then we will replay in our memory the exercises we have

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done all morning; the manner in which one behaved at prayer, at the Office, at Mass; finally we will examine ourselves on all that could have displeased God by thoughts, words, works or omissions.

If, in his examination, one has recognized some notable infidelity, one will notice it, in order to confess it at the first opportunity; and one will make an Act of Contrition of all one's faults, throwing them into the furnace of God's mercy, there to be consumed, with a strong resolution to be more attentive to oneself.

At the end of his examination, we will say a Padre, to ask God for the grace to make amends. This examination must be made briefly, as it is said in the Constitution; and before sitting down to table, we will say this prayer:

“Lord, my God, since it is your will, that I now take my restoration, I present myself there only to satisfy necessity, and not to satisfy sensuality. Sanctify this action and deign to have it agreeable, in union with the refections which Jesus Christ took, being on earth.

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Raise my spirit above the pleasure and taste of meats, and feed my soul with your divine presence and the reading that I will hear there. Blessed Virgin, obtain this grace for me, I implore you.”

Le De Profundis what is said in community, going from the Choir to the Refectory, must apply to benefactors.

11. BENEDICITY AND DINNER.

Le causes must be said with much devotion; we must remember that it is related in the Gospel that our Lord, although he was master of all the world, raised his divine eyes to heaven, giving thanks to his eternal Father before taking his meal. If Our Lord did it, it was for our example, and we must not miss it.

Let us acknowledge the providence of our heavenly Father, who, without our having labored, sends us our refection more liberally

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that many people in the world cannot have it, after great care.

The blessing being finished, we sit down at the table, and we remain there very modest, the hands under the Scapular, the lowered sight and the spirit elevated to God, imagining that we are in the company of Our Lord. and of the Apostles, in the Holy Cenacle, of which the refectory is the image. When you have rung the second ring of the bell, after having made the sign of the cross and unfolded your napkin, you take your bread to kiss it, blessing God for what he gives us to sustain ourselves; then they begin their repair, each receiving from the waitress what she presents to her, like an alms which God sends her, and considering herself as truly poor in Jesus Christ. This consideration should lead us to despise nothing that is presented to us, whether good or bad; if it is not according to our taste, we must remember the gall and the vinegar that Our Lord took on the cross for our love.

We must not let ourselves go so far in satisfying the needs of the body, that the mind

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think only of that; but one must reserve the ear and the heart to hear and savor the reading, as did the Apostles, listening to the divine words of Jesus Christ during the Last Supper.

One must still try to be very modest and mortified on the side of sight; refraining from looking sideways. When drinking, you hold your cup with both hands; it is an ancient custom of the Order, and before drinking one makes the sign of the cross over it. It is also necessary, for cleanliness, to take care to spoil your towel as little as possible. After eating your soup, you take a little water to wash your spoon, and when you leave any residue, you have to be careful that it is very clean. After the meal, we pick up the crumbs, in a spirit of poverty, remembering that Our Lord recommended it to the Apostles, after the multiplication of the loaves; and you must take care that your bucket, your knife and all things are very clean before leaving the table.

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12. MORTIFICATIONS PRACTICED IN THE REFECTORY.

1° Preliminary instruction.

The custom established in our Monasteries of making mortifications in the Refectory, a custom from which much profit is drawn, must not be lost; this is what our mother Saint Thérèse says in the Constitutions; but one must take care not to practice them out of habit, nor because one sees others doing them; one must always propose some good motive, such as acquiring the virtue of humility and self-contempt, of suffering some humiliation, in satisfaction for one's sins or to honor some mystery of the Passion of Our Lord. They should always be done with great modesty and inner spirit, keeping the sight downcast and in a way to inspire devotion in those who see them done. The Professed have permission to make two of the Ordinaries a week, either in front of or

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after the cause; but white Novices must always ask permission from their Mistress, and can only do so in front of the causes, and not afterwards, except dinner ashore. As it is said in the paper of exaction, one must not do two in one day, nor also two days in a row, unless one has ordered it.

We put here some of them, to teach to the Novices the interior application which they must have while doing them.

2° By kissing your feet.

We can imagine Our Lord washing the feet of His Apostles; unite one's action to his, and try to do it with feelings of the deepest humility, recognizing that, for one's pride and other sins, one deserves to be under everyone's feet, and pray to Our Lord to be willing to receive this small action in satisfaction of all the faults that one has committed through pride and vanity.

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3° By prostrating on the ground.

We must imagine that we indeed deserve to be trodden under foot like a sinner, enemy of God and the scum of everyone, or else remember Our Lord prostrated face down in the Garden of Olives, afflicted, praying and weeping for our sins.

4° By holding the arms outstretched in a cross.

Represent Our Lord on the cross, and tell him inwardly that one wishes to conform entirely to his holy humanity, by leading a crucified life; to his imitation, by continually dying to himself and to all that may displease him, in order to live for himself alone.

5° By asking for alms around the tables.

We must remember that the Son of God, who is the King of heaven and earth, made himself poor for love of us, and was good enough to receive alms from his creatures, he who was the Lord of all things, and try to do

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this action to imitate him and pay homage to his poverty.

6° By eating on the ground.

One must do this action with a great sense of humility; publicly acknowledging that one deserves to be rejected as a useless servant, that one suffers out of mercy in the house, and that one does not deserve to eat at table with one's sisters, who are the faithful servants of Our Lord.

7° By asking for forgiveness around the tables.

In doing this action, one must intend to make amends to the divine Majesty for the faults one has committed, and have the heart penetrated with true regret and a strong resolution to be more faithful to God. coming.

8° By taking a blindfold.

We will imagine Our Lord veiled by the Jews: his Majesty endured these affronts to chastise in himself the curiosity of our [eyes].

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9° By carrying the Cross.

We must imagine Our Lord carrying his cross, and laden with the heavy burden of all our crimes, going to offer himself to the Eternal Father as a victim for us. And, in this view, we must submit to carrying all the crosses that it pleases him to send us, giving ourselves to him for all that he pleases to do with us.

If we do some other mortification, we will fill our minds with some good thoughts, much like those we have just mentioned.

13. GRACES AFTER DINNER.

The Graces are said as they are marked in the Breviary, according to the time. But those who are not at Graces with the Community will say to themselves: Agimus; Reward; un Padre et Hail;

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Requiescing in pace, et Sit nomen Domini benedictum.

2. EXERCISES FOR THE AFTERNOON.

1. RECREATION.

The founders of Orders, who have always been led by the spirit of God, have found it expedient and even necessary to give some relaxation to the spirit by a little recreation, which is customary in most Religions, so that the mind, having taken this short rest, may then find itself in a position to continue its exercises with greater facility. It is in this view that our Mother Saint Thérèse allows us to take an hour of recreation after the meal, and even says that this time is well spent. One must therefore go there as exactly as at any other hour of Community, take care to bring one's work before the Examination, and make this prayer:

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“Lord my God, since it is your will, that I now take a little recreation, in order then to become more attentive to your divine service; give me the grace to behave there with such modesty, attention to myself and edification of my Sisters; may I please you and leave with the same desire to please you that I now feel. O most holy Virgin, assist me with your protection and make me an imitator of the admirable humility and modesty which you have preserved while conversing in the temple with the other virgins consecrated to God.

Having entered recess, and before speaking, we will kneel down to say a Ave Maria to the Blessed Virgin, so that she may obtain for us the grace not to say or do anything that might displease God.

Care must be taken not to commit any action there that is contrary to religious modesty, such as peals of laughter, to speak too loudly; one must try to avoid confusion, and not to interrupt oneself, having a great deal of honesty, deference and respect

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towards each other, not supporting his thought and his feeling with too much attachment, but yielding with much humility; not to speak of things which would smack too much of the world and of vanity, and not to argue with each other in anything. There are still small regulations in the Exaction Paper, touching recreation, which must be observed.

We will only say here that, just as one must take care not to be too frivolous there, one must also avoid being too closed in and wearing too sad and chagrin countenance; one must have a gentle and affable face, conversing with simplicity and frankness, recreating oneself by obedience, and sometimes trying to recall inwardly the presence of God.

After recreation, everyone retires to their little occupations.

At one o'clock, the Novices who do not know their Office will go to find their Mistress, unless she indicates another time, in order to study what they have to say to the Choir.

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2. VESPERS.

At two o'clock Vespers is rung. As soon as we hear the bell, we must try to enter into a spiritual joy of the good news that this signal announces, which is that God calls us to render him the honor and the service that we owe him: which must get there quickly.

While we're at De Profundis, between the strokes of the bell, one must occupy one's mind with holy thoughts, to prepare oneself to sing the praises of God and direct one's intention to offer him the action that one is going to do, by the following prayer, which can also serve for the Hours and for Matins:

“I acknowledge, my God, that I am unworthy to appear before you and to sing your praises; but, since you are willing to allow me to be present at this angelic exercise, I offer it to you to the glory of your divine Majesty, to the honor of the Blessed Virgin, to the salvation of all creatures and

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to fulfill my obligations, according to the intention of the Holy Church. I desire to acquit myself of it with the greatest perfection that it will be possible for me, and to unite myself with the dispositions with which Our Lord Jesus Christ prayed to you, being on earth; fill my heart with devotion and fervor, and give me the grace to preserve in it the attention and recollection of spirit necessary to pray well. I disavow all the distractions that may come to me, protesting that I do not want to give any consent to them. Blessed Virgin, obtain all these graces for me, I beg you.”

Enter the Choir with the respect due to the place where the Majesty of God resides, to listen there and favor those who pray. Think that you are entering in spirit into the loving heart of Our Lord, as into the holiest and most august Temple that ever was.

You will line up in your place, as among the choirs of Angels, whom you will beg to help you sing the divine praises. The instructions we put for the

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Hours which are said in the morning can be used for the whole Office, according to the particular devotion of each one.

After Vespers, when they are not sung, the Novices usually go to the Novitiate until three o'clock, and during this time they are read some point from the Constitution, the Exaction Paper or other books, and they can ask their Mistress what they do not understand well, either of the Exaction Paper, or of the ceremonies and other observances of religion, in order to instruct themselves well in all that is their duty.

At three o'clock, we kneel down and kiss the earth to adore the precious moment when Our Lord died on the cross.

3. READING.

Novices are usually allowed to take half an hour of reading a day, either in the morning or after dinner, according to the occupations and employments they will have. This

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permission is only for the time that they are Novices: for, as soon as they are in the Chapter, they follow what our Mother Saint Thérèse marks in the Constitution.

Novices must therefore, as much as they can, take advantage of this reading time, which they are allowed, without however having any other ties to it; for if obedience or some occupation given by the order of obedience prevents them from doing so, they will sacrifice it.

Before beginning to read, one must try to purify one's intention of all curiosity and raise one's mind to God, asking him to make us understand and taste what we are about to read, and the grace to enjoy it. We can, if we want, do it in the following way:

“My adorable Jesus, who art the wisdom of the Eternal Father, the principle of all light. enlighten, I pray you, my understanding and warm my heart, so that this reading, which I am about to do or hear, may succeed to your glory and to the salvation of my soul. Blessed Virgin, obtain this grace for me, I beg you.

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Many derive little profit from their reading and are not touched by it, for lack of having raised their hearts to God in the beginning, to ask him for his lights and his graces, because his divine spirit does not ordinarily come into a soul, if it doesn't come before.

Reading should not be done as an indifferent action, but as one of the main means that God gives us to advance in virtue and interior practices, because it does to the soul what food does to the body. . Spiritual reading is therefore the life of the soul and the principle of good thoughts. It is she who furnishes the wood which must maintain in the heart the fire of inflamed aspirations towards God; it is, as well as prayer, a channel through which His Majesty communicates his lights and makes his will heard.

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4. EVENING PRAYER.

At five o'clock, the prayer is sounded; as you go there, try to return to yourself, considering that you are going to talk familiarly about the affairs of your salvation with a God full of goodness, whose greatness is infinite, before whom all things are known if they were not, and on which depends all your happiness: which must lead you to say, with a deep feeling of your baseness: "Shall I speak to my Lord, I who am only powder and ashes? And on the other hand, rejoice in what His divine Majesty permits and even commands you to do.

The instructions given for morning prayer will serve for evening prayer, and what has been said for the refectory and recreation in the morning will also serve for evening.

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5. COMPLINES.

When the end of the evening recess sounds, we must finish all speeches and go to the De Profundis, to prepare to say Compline. We can pray the following prayer:

“Lord my God, another day has passed in my life. You gave it to me to advance in virtue and to grow in your love; alas! how did I pass it? I come, my God, to ask your forgiveness for the faults I committed there and to beg you to grant me the grace to attend this last part of the Office worthily for your glory, and to end happily all the actions of this daytime. Blessed Virgin, obtain this grace for me, I implore you.”

It should be noted that Compline was added by the Church to the Canonical Hours as a preparation for the night's rest: which means that the greater part of the

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prayers that are said there are ordained for this purpose.

Following therefore the plan of the Church, we must say the I confess with contrition and receive absolution in the same spirit; during the psalms, place ourselves under the protection of Our Lord, praying him to preserve us during the sleep of the night, and receive with devotion the blessing that the Prioress gives from God, by invocation of his name .

Then we will greet the Blessed Virgin with particular devotion, while we will say her antiphon, reciting it with joy and affection, such as we should have for the one who, being the Queen of Angels, adopted us for her children, in a particular way, without our having deserved it in any way.

We will arm ourselves against the onslaught of the devil with holy water, which is distributed at the end of this Office.

After Compline, everyone will return to the Choir to say a The Creator came for all those who recommended themselves to the prayers of the Community,

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and then the Antiphon Sub tuum praesidium, to the Blessed Virgin, for the dying who are in danger of approaching death. The rest of the time, until Matins, we have the freedom to use it for what we want, according to the need and the devotion of each one. If we haven't said our Rosary, it would be good to say it. But, in this time, as in any other, if something particular is desired from you, you must go there, always preferring charity and self-denial to all your particular devotions, a soul jealous of its perfection not having to appropriate anything, not even a single moment.

6. MORNINGS.

Going to Matins, we can imagine how Our Lord often spent whole nights in prayer on the mountains, exposed to the ravages of time, and that it was at nine o'clock that he went to pray in the Garden of Olives, which is the hour when we begin our Matins. If we let ourselves go

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cowardice or sleep, let us fear that he will reproach us the same way he did his disciples: “How! you can't force yourself to spend an hour at night with me? »

The instructions and directions that have been given so much to Hours only Vespers can be used for Matins. Let us always imagine, as it has already been said, that we are in the Choir as in the true paradise, before the throne of God, in the middle of the celestial Court, surrounded by a million Angels and Saints, in presence and in whose company we must sing with respect, reverence and fervour, thinking that we are doing here on earth what they are doing in heaven, and that we must be the Angels of the earth, however unworthy of them.

7. EXAMINATION OF CONSCIENCE BEFORE BED.

This Exercise is most profitable, if it is done diligently, and not lightly and

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custom ; for a soul jealous of its perfection, seeking in the evening where it may have failed throughout the day, tries to put it in order. The way to see oneself subject to an imperfection and to promise God so many times to correct it without deriving a sensible profit from it? Can we long endure in our soul some defect which we know to be disagreeable to God?

Or finally, if, after having done all possible diligence, we still see ourselves falling into a few faults, we will at least benefit from not falling into the same ones, not so often as before. The Examination has five points:

The first, to recognize the benefits we have received from God, and the obligations we have to serve him perfectly;

The second, to ask him for the lights necessary to discover our offenses;

The third, to find out where we have failed;

The fourth, to conceive pain and to ask forgiveness from God;

The fifth, to form a firm purpose to correct themselves.

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All these points will be found in the following prayers:

“Great God, in whose spirit I am always present, and who yourself deserve to be always present in my spirit, allow me, returning from the dissipation in which I have been, to dare to present myself before you; fix my mind, Lord, hold it in your presence; fill it with the majesty of your glory, and allow me, sunk in the depths of my nothingness, to give you thanks for all the good things you have done me, from the first moment of my life to this day, having given me a soul capable of knowing you, loving you and enjoying you eternally; for having redeemed me with your precious blood, for having placed me among the number of the children of your Church, and for having made me participate in your divine Mysteries; because you were pleased to give me your body and your blood to be food for my soul. I thank you again, my God, for giving me the grace to call me to a religious vocation, where you give me so many means of glorifying you and

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to serve: finally, my God, for all these benefits and so many others that I have received from your goodness, I return to you all the thanks of which I am capable, and beg you, O my Saviour, to add still more to all the graces that I have already received from you, that of showing me how I have offended you, and of making me conceive of real pain."

Then we take a little time to see how we have offended God; researching his actions, words and thoughts; observing how one behaved at prayers, at offices, in silence, at common assemblies; examining all these actions since the last Examination, noticing the imperfections committed and the perfections omitted, what care has been taken to make use of the opportunities to practice virtue, as we have used the time given to us to advance in the love of God, and what profit has been made from the reception of the Sacraments, which must be very great, if we put no obstacle to it. After acknowledging one's faults, one must perform the following act of Contrition:

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“My Lord and my God, I very humbly ask your forgiveness for all the ingratitude by which I have so displeased and offended you, after all the graces you have given me: you always think of me and I forget you constantly; you love me, and I don't return you, because I only offend you. O my God, I throw all my sins into the furnace of your mercy, that they may there be consumed and annihilated; I repent of it, Lord, and would like never to have committed them, because they displease you; I promise you, by means of your holy grace, not to offend you again. Forgive me, I implore you by your great mercy, by the precious blood that your Son shed for me, and by the merits of the Blessed Virgin.

Blessed Virgin, my very dear Mother and Patroness, and you my Father Saint Joseph, and our Mother Saint Thérèse, protect me this night and all the rest of my life. My holy Guardian Angel, stay close to me, in order to preserve me from all the efforts

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demons. And you, my patron saints NN., assist this poor sinner with your intercessions.”

After this act of Contrition, it is necessary to say the Confiteor.

8. BEDTIME.

After the examination, one retires to go to bed promptly. While undressing, one must fill the mind with some good thoughts, and, if possible, with the subject of the Meditation for the next day; recognize the goodness of God, who is very great towards us, since he provides us with everything we need, he who lived on earth in such extreme poverty that he had no place to lay his head .

Before going to bed, we must kneel down, to offer God the rest we are about to take, uniting Him to the rest and sleep that Our Lord Jesus Christ took while on earth, joining all the praises and adorations that will be returned to him this night

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in heaven and on earth, desiring that all our breaths and heartbeats might be so many acts of love toward him, all through the night, and disavowing anything that might come into the mind that would be disagreeable to him; finally, putting his soul and his body in his hands, begging him to grant us the grace to rest in his love.

But all this must be done briefly, approximately the space of a Padre and a Ave, to go to bed quickly.

When you go to bed, take holy water, make the sign of the cross, and, lying down, think of the sleep that Our Lord took on the cross, commending his spirit to his Father, and say with him: My God, I commend my spirit to you and place it in your hands.

Put it also in the heart of Our Lord Jesus Christ as if he were saying to you: Sleep now and rest in my heart; saying with David: I will sleep in peace in this adorable heart; I will take my rest there.

If you wake up at night, raise your spirit to God by some aspiration.

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These are the little regulations of the day; it will be spent very holy, if we observe them with application and interior spirit. We must moreover each day, in the morning, if possible, visit two hermitages, one of the Blessed Virgin, where we will say a little prayer, to offer ourselves to her and place ourselves under her protection; the other from our Mother Saint Thérèse, where we will also make some prayer to ask her for the spirit of a true Carmelite, and the grace to fulfill all our duties well. If one cannot comfortably visit the hermitages, one will content oneself with saying one's prayer in front of some painting of the Blessed Virgin and our Holy Mother. As for Sundays and Feasts, one can visit all the hermitages for which one has devotion and devote more time, if one wishes, to reading or praying according to one's fervor. When we have something to write or transcribe, we also do it on Sundays and Feasts, and the Novices must, on these same days, sometimes go to the garden, to pick up while walking the fruits that have fallen, or to do some other small thing there. thing, if the weather is suitable to go there, and if the small

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occupations they may have allow them.

After giving Instructions for each action of the day, something remains to be said for actions that are not done every day.

SECOND PART.

INSTRUCTIONS FOR ACTIONS THAT ARE NOT DONE EVERY DAY.

1. CONFESSION.

1. PRELIMINARY INSTRUCTION.

It can be said that the life of the soul depends on Confession and Communion. Confession heals her of her infirmities, Communion nourishes her: these two actions must be done with the required dispositions.

Examination of conscience is a necessary disposition of the Sacrament of Penance. To get started, you need:

1° Place oneself in the presence of God, as

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before his judge, from whom nothing is hidden, and who, with a penetrating eye, sees all the recesses of the interior, and at the same time recognizes the graces and benefits that one has received from him.

2° To ask the Holy Spirit for the lights necessary to know one's sins, particularly those which most displease God.

3° To examine oneself on one's thoughts, words, works and omissions, going through all the actions that the Religion prescribes for each day.

We will put, below, a Examen for those who want to use it. But we must be careful not to stop too long in making useless inquiries, for there are those who make the excellence of their Confession consist in remembering exactly all their sins, in saying everything and in forgetting nothing; if a single one escapes them, even after a sufficient examination, they become confused and believe that they have essentially failed. We should not worry about something that is not in our power: it is God who gives us the knowledge of our sins; if he allowed us to involuntarily forget some fault, why bother us?

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It does not require us to say what we do not remember, but only what we remember. Let us therefore remain at rest, after having taken a sufficient time to examine ourselves, and let us be content with the light that God gives us, without wanting to have more of it; for to act otherwise is to throw oneself into anxieties very prejudicial to the principal aim of one's vocation, which is interior conversation with God.

Having recognized one's faults, one must make a very sincere confession of them, which comes more from the heart than from the lips; hate them; ask forgiveness from God; promise him sincerely and truly to correct himself; consider the main source of all its disorders and bring the necessary remedies. Do not imagine yourself having confessed well, for having confessed all your sins, if you did not hate them; there are some who spend all their time looking for something to accuse themselves of: they hardly think of hating what they have done, nor of foreseeing what they must do, although these two points are the most important for make a good confession.

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It is not necessary for a Contrition to be sensible in order to be true; one must have a sincere sorrow for one's sins; but the sincerity of this pain must not be judged by the sensibility of the heart; if you do not have this sensitivity, pray God to give it to you, if it is his holy will, and try to supply it with your humility; prostrate yourself in body and spirit before God; recognize, by an interior feeling, your infidelities and ingratitudes, after so many graces received, so many marks of love that he has given you; get confused; ask forgiveness from him with all your heart; promise him to sin no more, and then remain in peace and go to confession. God, who sees your heart, knows very well that you do not want to deceive him, nor make yourself guilty of sacrilege.

We will say again that Confession must be: 1° simple without much speech, and such as one would make it to God himself, who knows our heart well; 2° true, without adding or diminishing, without giving as certain what is doubtful, and without saying at random the first sins that come to the mouth, do not

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not knowing definitely whether they have been committed; 3° humble ; but it is to act against humility, to accuse oneself of certain things which are scarcely sins in the most virtuous, and to accuse oneself of them, in order to be esteemed by one's Confessor. Self-love creeps in everywhere, even in our holiest actions; it is better to say three or four big faults with humility, than to amuse oneself with the detail of small imperfections with self-love.

4° Confession must still be Claire : so that the Confessor can know the sins of which one accuses oneself. This is why they must not be stated in large, nor in general terms; but to particularize them, with the circumstances which aggravate them, as much as possible. For example, it is imperfect confession to say: I accuse myself of not having loved God with all my heart; for not having kept my Rules; for not having guarded my senses, and similar things: it is necessary to specify in what and how.

5° Confession must be discreet : it is necessary to avoid saying useless things, like also not declaring the sins of others.

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6° Finally, it must be short, without telling whole stories, without saying what is not necessary, without repeating several times, in different places, the same sin.

So after you have been well disposed by examination, contrition of heart and the firm intention of amending yourselves, go to confession. Declare your sins plainly and modestly. When you have said what you know, listen to what the priest will tell you, or rather what the Son of God will tell you by his mouth; for one must believe that it is God himself who speaks. And when he gives you absolution, enter into a feeling of contrition and interiorly pray to Our Lord to wash your soul in his precious blood.

Coming out of Confession, try to put yourselves in the spirit of the wounds of Our Lord, in order to keep yourself, in these holy retreats, pure and free from sin; Take care to keep the grace given to you by this Sacrament, watching over yourself, so as not to fall back into the faults of which you have confessed: invoke the assistance of

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the Blessed Virgin, so that she may obtain this grace for you.

As for your penance, you will do it with as much devotion as possible.

2. EXAMINATION OF CONSCIENCE FOR CONFESSION.

1° Sins against God.

I have spoken of spiritual things more from vanity than from a true feeling of God. Attending the Mass, I cowardly resisted the distractions I had there: I stopped there voluntarily during a notable part (you have to specify if it is a feast day).

I gave rise, during the Office, to many distractions, for having been too fond of outward actions, for having thrown my sight from one side to the other out of curiosity, out of levity, etc.

I was negligent in dismissing the distractions that came to me there, knowing it (specify how many times, if possible, and if it was a notable part).

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Assistant to the Choir, I said the Office very cowardly, and failed to make the inclinations and ceremonies which are ordered to us. Saying the Office in my private, I said it with haste and indevotion.

I said my devotional prayers indevoutly and by custom, on the pretext that they were not obligatory.

I was negligent in getting rid of the distractions I had in prayer (specify if I stopped there voluntarily).

I acquitted myself cowardly of my exams, doing them as a matter of fact, and sometimes I didn't do them at all.

I have been negligent in following the inspirations God has given me for the practice of virtues.

I gave way to cowardice in my Spiritual Exercises, because of the dryness and aridity that I had there.

I gave way to discouragement in my good resolutions for the practice of virtues, through cowardice and lack of trust in God.

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I neglected to rectify my intentions in my main actions.

I worried, out of a certain pride, that I had fallen into some sin or imperfection, instead of rising from it with confidence and returning to God.

I went to Confession without having examined myself sufficiently, and without having produced an Act of Contrition and a Proposal for Amendment (how many times).

I was negligent in preparing for Holy Communion, and presented myself there with an unrecollected spirit.

I let myself go to distractions soon after Holy Communion, and did not take enough care to give thanks to Our Lord for such a great blessing.

I failed to have full compliance with God's will in something that happened to me against my inclination; this caused me to give way to grief and impatience (to say, if possible, how many times, and if it was a long time).

I let slip imperceptibly several imperfect intentions of self-love and

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human respect in my actions, failing to refer them to God actually by a right intention.

I have examined the points of faith too curiously; I have given rise to some doubt on this.

2° Sins against the Superiors.

I looked to my Prioress for her imperfections rather than her authority, or rather the authority of God himself who is in her.

I obeyed with reluctance and a whisper to myself, when she ordered me something I didn't like.

I did not do faithfully or punctually anything she commanded me.

I did not ask her permission before doing certain things for which it is customary to warn her.

I did not receive with gentleness and humility the remonstrances and corrections she made to me, internally apologizing and remaining all pained and troubled.

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I have voluntarily entertained some resentment against her; I was negligent in getting rid of it.

I judged her words and deeds rashly, misinterpreting her actions, by the aversion I had against her.

I have spoken ill of her; and that went even to complaining, to murmuring, and even to contempt of his ordinances and his conduct.

I disrespected her, speaking to her passionately and boldly, contradicting her and refusing to obey her. (Specify whether it was stubbornness or otherwise.)

3° Sins against neighbor,

I have formed some slight, unfounded suspicion of some deed or word of my neighbor, which I could largely explain.

I have been negligent in throwing away any thought of rash judgment on my neighbor.

I cowardly expressed some movement of hatred against someone, without however having consented to it.

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I had jealousy, seeing that others were preferred to me in something.

I have voluntarily entertained myself in thoughts of pain, knowing bad will when someone has been the cause of my being taken back see resumed and mortified for some faults).

I have spoken harsh or inconsiderate words to some of my Sisters, and caused them to become troubled and impatient.

I wanted too strongly to prevail over the others, making it seem too attached to support my thoughts on a few occasions.

I caused pain to one of my Sisters, getting in the way of taking it back without being in charge of it.

I behaved incivilly towards my Sisters, not giving them the deference, nor the relief that I owed them (to say if they were hurt by any sign or mockery).

I made some slight detraction from a person.

I took some satisfaction in hearing badly

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talk about someone, albeit in a matter of small consequence.

I said words with sourness and impatience, for lack of application on myself.

I replied with a sort of impatience when someone said a few mortifying or humiliating words to me, instead of enduring them patiently.

I said a few light whispered words against a few people, complaining for no reason about something I didn't like.

I didn't reject the murmuring thoughts I had against a few people.

I did not force myself to appease some little dissension I had had with someone, and did not seek opportunities.

I did not faithfully repress movements of aversion that I felt against a person, for some displeasure that I had received from it.

I spoke words of flattery, endorsing evil that I knew to be such, to please

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to persons or for any other reason.

I made fun of someone, hurt them or humiliated them.

I caused pain to one of my Sisters, doing some action in front of her, with the intention of correcting her, not daring to say a word.

I neglected to repress some movement of impatience which stirred up within me, and made it appear outside.

I had a hard heart and without compassion, not rendering the charitable assistance that I owed to my Sisters, on the occasions that presented themselves.

I have been a subject of scandal to my Sisters, causing them to commit faults, either by bad example, or by solicitation.

I have made some report or slander to the detriment of charity.

4° Sins against oneself.

I told a few lies, but they didn't harm anyone. (Say

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whether out of vanity, thoughtlessness, exaggeration or other motive.)

I said words that turned to my praise, out of vanity.

I apologized, out of self-respect, for some fault that I have been reproached for. (Say if someone else was accused and if it was lying.)

I did some deeds of virtue to be esteemed.

I indulged in many frivolous thoughts, instead of conversing with God, according to my power.

I have not turned away quickly from thoughts of vainglory and self-indulgence, for having done well in some deed, or for some praise given to me.

I did not remove from me thoughts that gave me and maintained me in sadness, letting me go in sorrow and in melancholy.

I spent time in idleness, out of laziness.

I broke the silence unnecessarily.

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I said words of mockery that may have caused pain.

I have not dismissed any thought against purity quickly enough.

In the jobs I've had, I've been too attentive and eager.

I did something small out of revenge.

I savored the taste of what I ate too much, instead of giving it up from time to time, and turning my mind to God or to the reading we were doing.

I have been immodest in my exterior, giving off the appearance of much levity and dissipation.

I disguised the truth as something, recklessly assuming the uncertain for the certain, exaggerating or using equivocal words against simplicity and sincerity.

I carried myself in some outward actions with a disordered affection which prevented me from raising myself to God.

I did not receive with gentleness and humility the charitable remonstrances that were made to me; I was put off and stung by it.

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Out of vanity I spoke of the things of the world, of my birth and of my parents.

I have been a hypocrite, saying some word or keeping some action silent to be considered better than I am.

I have been too affected in my speeches, using too elaborate words, as seculars would do.

I have not forgiven willingly those who have offended me.

On some notable occasion I offended someone and did not ask forgiveness.

I have been too fond of everything that concerned the comforts of life.

I have somehow affected the singularity.

5° Sins Against Poverty

I have asked, taken or given something, big or small, without permission.

I have allowed something to be lost or spoiled by my negligence and carelessness.

I had too much attachment to something that was for my particular use, so that,

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when it was taken away from me, I showed resentment.

I refused to lend my Sisters what they needed when they asked me, although I could have done so. (Say if it was out of attachment to what you had, or out of lack of charity.)

I murmured when I missed something or the things I was given were not to my liking, either for living or other bodily convenience.

I did not serve my Sisters with charity, and failed to give them willingly what was of my office.

I despised and abhorred vile and poor things.

I was attached to what seemed beautiful or convenient to me; I desired it.

6° Sins Against Religious Observances

I was negligent in going promptly to the Divine Office, when I heard the bell ring.

I am absent from mental prayer,

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or a few hours of Community, without real necessity.

I neglected to prepare myself for the Office and the mental prayer: which caused me to go there with a dissipated mind.

I failed to submit to the common ordinances that our Mother made.

I have willfully and with some kind of contempt transgressed some Rule of

the Order.

I have been absent without permission for some time from Community.

I remained in the parlor during the Divine Office, without necessity or without any good

reason.

Here is a part of the principal and ordinary faults into which a religious soul can fall. But we must not believe that we have committed all these sins for having had thoughts of them: for the thought without the will is not a sin, the thought being no more in our power than the first movement. But as there are various degrees in sin, one must look to what degree one has let oneself go; if we have

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had pleasure in thought, and if from thought one passed to consent.

Some mistakes are also made by surprise, as if without thinking about it; others out of weakness: after having struggled for some time, one finally succumbs; and others from cowardice and negligence, when one does not stiffen oneself against one's passion or temptation; others out of malice, when maliciously and without much passion one does what one knows to be wrong. There is finally against the remorse of his conscience and against the light of the Holy Spirit. These last two species are most displeasing to Our Lord. Thus one must not fail to specify them in Confession, as more notable. One must also notice what happened by sheer negligence, without perfect consent; separate what is doubtful from what is certain, and declare one's sins in the way that one knows oneself guilty before God, with much simplicity and humility, according to the light that the Holy Spirit gives to each one , without wanting to stop to say them as one finds them marked in the Examinations, if one feels inwardly to have committed them differently.

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3. ACT OF CONTRITION BEFORE CONFESSION.

“I am confused, O my God, to have offended you, because of your infinite goodness and after all the graces that you have given me and that you are continually giving me; I wish I could die of grief for having been so cowardly and so ungrateful; I very humbly ask you for forgiveness and the grace of a true penance, which will cause me to die to every sin; consume and annihilate all those whom I have committed in the furnace of your divine mercy; I hate them with all my heart and promise you, by means of your holy grace, to be more faithful to you and to offend you no more. Forgive me then, I beseech you, O my God, by the precious blood which your Son shed for me; apply to me the virtue of this adorable blood which gives salvation and life. My Savior Jesus Christ, purify me, and sanctify me by the anointing of this sacred balm which flows into your wounds; have the goodness to offer it to your Heavenly Father, as the only remedy

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of my ills; I ask you for this grace through the merits of the Blessed Virgin, and join all your Angels and your Saints, never to stop loving and adoring you with them, in recognition of all that you have done and endured for my salvation and that of all men.

2. COMMUNITY.

1. PRELIMINARY INSTRUCTION.

We must try to understand well the importance of such a lofty, worthy and holy action; to think seriously of the inestimable goods which flow from a well-made Communion, and to consider attentively that in the most adorable Sacrament of the Altar are contained all the marvels of heaven and earth.

If Our Lord, speaking of his Incarnation, said: God so loved the world that he gave it his only begotten Son, each can say in his particular, when he approaches the

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Most Blessed Sacrament: God loves me with such a great love that he gives me his only Son.

The consideration of such a precious advantage and such a great favor must lead us to enter into very perfect and very holy dispositions, to make us worthy to participate in this adorable Mystery. The first disposition must be a great purity of conscience, which is not only exempt from all affection for mortal sin, but also from affection for venial sin. What fault would it be in a soul which communicates so often, to live in a universal abandonment of its interior and of its spiritual advancement, to be in great negligence in combating its evil inclinations, and in uprooting its vicious habits, of not not watching carefully for the guard of her heart, to prevent and arrest, as much as she can, the first movements; finally, to turn a deaf ear to the voice of God, and to despise the good interior movements that he has given him. Those who communicate being subject to these faults, not only do they not receive the admirable fruits of this bread

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living, who have a savory taste and a certain tenderness for the things of God, but become blind, harden little by little and sometimes come to the point of falling into that miserable state where the most sacred things become indifferent to them and where nothing is more capable of touching them. Let us therefore avoid this misfortune by continual vigilance to avoid the slightest faults.

The second thing necessary is a great recollection of mind with a sweet and peaceful tranquility of heart. Contemplation releases the mind from all superfluous care, from all distractions and dissipations which, dividing our thoughts, would render us incapable of receiving the interior lights that adorable would like to spread in our souls. Those who approach this divine and adorable Sacrament with a dissipated and distracted mind, experience, to their great prejudice, that they leave it darker and less disposed to remember to themselves than they were. previously ; if they continue to approach it in this way, they will become little

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in a state as pitiful as it is dangerous.

When, therefore, we have to communicate, we must more than ever take care to guard our senses; to apply ourselves more exactly to all our duties, to walk more carefully in the presence of God, to behave with greater restraint and modesty in the external actions which obedience will command us, to keep our mind more constantly occupied with good thoughts, to strive , from the morning prayer, to put our interior in good order, and the rest of the time to always have before our eyes and in the heart that we must communicate that day, to avoid as much as possible the useless things that could distract us from paying attention to God.

The third disposition is to rectify and purify our intentions well, going to the Holy Table, not by custom, that is to say without intentions and without reflections, or because religion orders it, and that others do it. , nor for having spiritual tastes or sensible devotion; but it has to be by

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an intimate desire to unite ourselves to Jesus Christ, and to make us more sharers in him, arousing in us for this subject a loving hunger for this living Bread, which, by dint of desires and a sweet impatience to enjoy it , make our hearts ardent and inflamed, like those of the pilgrims to Emmaus.

We must question ourselves before presenting ourselves there, and ask ourselves what purpose we are going there, and what we claim there. To which we must respond that it is so that Our Lord Jesus Christ, who came to bring fire to the earth to burn it with his love, coming into our breast, embraces us and unites us lovingly to him, clothing us of his mind; that it is to taste there how sweet and suave God is, and to detach us from everything else; that it is to learn there to know his most holy will, and to acquire there the strength to accomplish it. It must be, in the end, for a divine and supernatural motive; principally to advance us in prayer, presence of God, and familiar conversation with his divine Majesty. So we always have to make up our minds

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a very holy intention, before approaching this adorable Mystery; if we fail in it, it is a sign that we have little faith, that our heart is lukewarm, and that we are very unwilling to receive it worthily, and to derive from it all the fruit that we can and should derive from it. These three things of which we have just spoken, namely: a great purity of conscience, a great recollection of heart, and an express and very pure intention, are the three remote dispositions which we must bring to make a worthy Communion.

There are those who add to these three provisions that of directing all the good exercises of the day, beginning even from the prayer of the evening of the previous day, in order to prepare for them further on; others observe a few particular practices. Others take some Saints for advocates, and ask them to help them prepare for it. Others address themselves to the Angels and to the citizens of heaven, asking of one faith, of another fervor, of another recollection, of another humility, of another a great desire and a spiritual hunger for this

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divine nourishment, to another, great love and respect, thus making a spiritual quest to supply their poverty, and to prepare a dwelling place for the King of kings.

But, having done all we can, let us persuade ourselves that the best of all preparations is the knowledge of ourselves, of our poverty and our neediness, with a firm hope that our Lord, by his goodness, will make up for it, expecting from him alone the nourishment of our soul and the only change of our heart. Let us not withdraw from the Holy Table out of disgust or scruple; salvation sometimes depends on a Communion. What do we know, if it wouldn't be the one we would omit?

Sensible devotion is not necessary for good communion, since it does not always depend on our will, and it often happens that the greatest saints are deprived of it. It is not in these tendernesses that true devotion consists, but in a prompt and constant will to do what God wills, and not to do what he forbids. Let's do what

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we can, with the grace of God. Let us try to supply by our humility what is lacking in our charity, and we will be well prepared.

2. OF THE NEXT PREPARATION FOR COMMUNION.

1° Preliminary instruction.

We do not want to determine our Sisters so much to the acts that we will put here, that they cannot freely adopt others, according to the movement of the Holy Spirit. Because it will be much more useful to treat with Our Lord, from the bottom of the heart and in complete freedom, than to attach oneself to certain acts, which one would read without interior devotion and which one would recite by mouth only. However, to open the mind to beginners, we put here some formulas of the main acts, which are of Faith, Humility and Love, to prepare for this divine action. If those here are not enough, others will be found in several books dealing with this adorable and ineffable Sacrament.

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2° Act of Faith.

"You come to me, Lord, in the ways and inventions of incomprehensible wisdom, and I come to you in the submission of perfect faith, believing that you are, in this adorable Sacrament, the same one who was crucified for me. I believe, Lord, every word of your mouth. You said so expressly that it is your body and your blood, that, notwithstanding that my eyes only show me the appearances of bread, I recognize you there truly present, and adore you there, the same one who was lying in the manger, who are now full of glory in heaven, and who will be, on the last day of the world, the Judge of the living and the dead.

I believe, Lord, in these divine Mysteries, until I am in heaven to understand their secrets. I confess that you can do an infinity of admirable things, which surpass my knowledge. This is why I adore you in this

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host, with a firmer belief than if I saw you there. For my eyes may often be wrong, but your holy word is always true.”

3° Act of Humility.

“Who are you, my God? and who am I? from where does this grace come to me, that you wanted to give yourselves to me who am only misery and sin? How dare you, O my God, that a vessel of corruption dare to receive you, you who are goodness, purity and holiness itself? What temerity of me to approach such a holy and sacred thing, and what an excess of kindness to invite myself to it, despite my unworthiness!

Lord, the bad disposition of my soul is not hidden from you. You know how miserable I am, all my infidelities are known to you: where does this love come from? You invite me to eat food that should only be for the Saints! The first of your apostles, astonished at this

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that you wanted to wash his feet, said to you: What! Lord, you wash my feet! O my God, you do me much more, since you give yourself to me. Why do you attach your heart to such a vile and puny creature? Heaven cannot contain your greatness, and you deign to enter into a poor creature who has offended you so many times. I detest and disavow, my Lord, all that is in me which may displease you; and if by my death I could destroy sin, I would willingly lay down my life, lest you be offended.

Alas! my divine Redeemer, I confess before heaven and before earth that I am unworthy to approach you and to receive you; if I had all the love of the Seraphim, and if I had served you as faithfully as all the Saints put together, I would still be unworthy to receive you. I beg you, my Lord, to make up for my unworthiness, prepare the house yourself and send two of your disciples to put everything in order.

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4° Act of Desire and Love.

"Since your goodness is so great, O my God, that you allow me to unite myself to you, and that you are willing to enter into a creature who is so unworthy of it, come and rejoice, vivify and enrich by your presence the soul of your poor servant; come and sanctify it; take possession of his heart and purify it; enter into his body, and consecrate him by your divine touch.

I know, my Redeemer, that this Sacrament requires an extreme purity, which I do not recognize in myself. But I also know very well that you do not put off the sinners who come before you. You said that you did not come for the just, but for sinners who would like to be converted: in this view, I take the liberty of approaching you and begging you to enter the dwelling of my conscience. , so that you deign to heal all my wounds, and bring the remedy to the ills that torment me. Come on, my

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Lord, and work in me all the wonders that your visit brings. Make sure that by tasting you, I find everything in the world insipid, and that I never take part in it.

Come, divine Spouse of my soul; prepare for yourself a pleasant abode in me, come there, and reign there forever. Take away from me everything you see there that could displease you, detach my heart from everything that is below you. Make me as you desire me to be, and make me a perfect image of your holy humanity; penetrate my soul and intoxicate it with your divine love, transform me so much into you that I become the object of your tender complacency.

3. ACTS WHEN ONE IS NEAR TO RECEIVE COMMUNION.

“Enter, my Lord, enter into my heart. Why are you delaying any longer?

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Come, Lord, the beloved of my soul; come to the bottom of my heart.

Burn, O consuming fire, all that you see in me that is unworthy of your presence, and that can stand in the way of your glory and my salvation.

4. THANKSGIVING AFTER COMMUNION.

1° Preliminary instruction.

We understand in thanksgiving not only the acts of thanks that we make to Our Lord, for the inestimable benefit that we have received from him through Holy Communion, but also all the feelings of devotion, of love and of spiritual joy, with the good words, offerings and requests on which One occupies oneself interiorly, after such a holy action.

Immediately, therefore, after having received the Holy Host, we must close the door of our senses, in order to entertain at leisure and with effusion Our Lord who has come to visit us, and to keep ourselves like the Magdalen attentive to his

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words ; let us listen to what he will say to our hearts, or let us speak affectionately to him ourselves of the important matters of our salvation and our perfection.

The soul must regard as truly precious this time, during which the heavenly treasures are opened. For the Eternal Father, giving us his own Son, will he not be ready to give us also all the other graces, which are much less? We must therefore not lose a single moment of such favorable weather, nor let slip the opportunity of enriching ourselves, but ask this true Physician and sovereign King to remedy our illnesses, and to provide for our spiritual necessities while we possess it. For if the mere touch of his robe healed the sick (as the holy Gospel says, because a divine virtue issued from him), what will he not operate in a soul which not only touches him, but who owns it all? Doesn't he say that he comes to us to make us live more and more of a divine life?

Why then do many remain so poor, so weak, so lukewarm, and always in

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an unhappy way of life, crawling after so many Communions? It is doubtless because this celestial nourishment does not operate in them, according to the design of Our Lord; because they themselves operate nothing on it: which, however, is necessary to receive its admirable effects, just as it is necessary to take it into a state of grace, to receive its essential and principal fruit.

They possess Him who contains within Himself all the treasures of the Divinity, and they remain poor. They have in their bosom He who is a devouring fire, and yet they always remain in their coldness, because they leave Our Lord incontinent after having received him, dissipating their spirits and soon forgetting that they have him in them. themselves, as say the Jews who received him with great honor on the day of his entry into Jerusalem, and immediately left him all alone in the Temple, each going home or about his business: so that he went out of the city on an empty stomach, without anyone noticing it: so we do not read that he bestowed any favor on it.

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We must therefore spend such precious time giving thanks to God, proposing all our needs to him, and asking him for his graces since this time is so favorable to us, and God will not fail to give us abundantly, he finds us well disposed.

2° Thanksgiving form.

“My Lord and my God, who kindly wanted to enter my soul, however poor and feeble it was, I open to you all the doors of my heart, so that you may take perfect possession of it. But where does this happiness come from, that my God comes to communicate himself to a poor creature full of miseries? Ah! Lord, it comes from your love, not from my merits. I thank you with all my heart, and desire that all creatures bless you for me. But, O my God, as it is only you who know perfectly the excellence of this divine gift and this Sacrament, render to yourself the graces and the praises which you deserve.

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How happy I am, Lord, to have you in my heart! I rejoice with you, my God, my refuge, my true good; I will love you, Lord, with all my strength; kindle in my heart that consuming fire which you have come to bring to earth; here is my soul, Lord, which I present to you, that you may kindle it. Why does it not burn? I renounce all that is in me, which may displease you. Receive me in holocaust forever. Fill me with your graces, take me under your protection, deliver me from my sins, help me to overcome such temptation or imperfection that troubles me the most. Adorn my soul with Christian and religious virtues, make it conform to your holy humanity; make her so faithful to you, that she never strays from your will, that she continually seeks you with fiery desires, until she enjoys you, no longer covered with the veil of the species sacramental, but face to face and uncovered in heaven.”

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3° Final statement.

We can, if we want, form several acts on these models, according to the movement of the Holy Spirit, always trying to do it with a heart penetrated and interiorly touched, rather than by words spoken without application, which cannot be pleasing to God; it is much better to say four or five words with an inner feeling, than a multitude that would be said only from the mouth, without the heart having any part in it.

We must not forget to ask many graces from Our Lord. For the goodness of this divine guest complains if nothing is asked of him: seeing that he only comes to us to enrich us with his graces; as when he was visible in this world, he never entered any place, without leaving there marks of his presence by some particular benefit.

It would also be very useful to form firm resolutions to overcome some imperfection to which one finds oneself most prone, or to practice some virtue, the occasions of which are more ordinary; but above all you have to apply

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to the amendment of the faults of which we have confessed, and to offer our Lord these resolutions, to show him that we want to be his in effect and not by word only.

If we feel a great sensitive devotion, we must take advantage of these precious moments with great humility, and be careful not to attribute this benefit of Our Lord to having been well prepared; but to relate it to his grace alone, which wants to confound our ingratitude by an increase in his kindness.

If, on the contrary, we find ourselves dry and arid, we must not be too downhearted or distressed, but remember that the consolations of Our Lord are for faithful souls and not for the infidels; that it is a lot that he wants to enter a dwelling so poor, that we do not deserve that he speaks to us as a familiar friend, and yet produce as best he can acts of faith, of love, of thanksgiving and others, and tell Our Lord that our ignorance and lack of capacity deprive us of the means of conversing with Him; but let us beseech him to make up for our impotence, and to do in our hearts what he has

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plan to do so, by changing him entirely and making herself master of him, and to offer him the feelings of abasement and love, in which the Blessed Virgin was lost when she had the happiness of receiving him, when he wanted to incarnate himself in his sacred entrails, and finally try to humble himself a lot, and do on his side what we can without being disturbed.

It is a good practice to keep often in interior silence, with a tranquil mind and an elevated and attentive soul to listen to what Our Lord will want to say to us interiorly, inviting him to speak to us, saying to him: Do , Lord, hear your voice in the ears of my heart: for you are the ones who have the words of eternal life. Speak, O my God; teach me your holy will and the means of accomplishing it. Let me know what you dislike most about me, so that I can correct it. And, if Our Lord wants to reveal to us what he asks of us, try to take the means and the resolutions to practice it, and ask him for his grace. As he finished his thanksgiving, he would be

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good to offer to Our Lord all the exercises and all the good works that we must do the rest of the day, and even all those that must be done by everyone, particularly all the Masses that we will celebrate that day- there in the universal Church, and ask his blessing before leaving him, saying: Lord, I will not separate myself from you until you have given me your holy blessing.

And the rest of the day we must remember the happiness we had to receive such a good host; keep oneself well collected, behave in all things with great modesty, and from time to time make elevations to God on this benefit.

3. REGINA SALVO

that we sing every Saturday.

The practical devotee who has always been in our Order to sing the Hello Regina every Saturday, is so pleasing to the Blessed Virgin, that she made him known and felt by the favors

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particular and interior that it has often communicated to those who fulfill it with dignity. Our Mother Saint Thérèse saw her one day, as they were singing, descending from heaven with a multitude of Angels, who told her that she had been present at the praises that had been sung to her Son, and that she had had take care to present them to him. It is also reported that, in a Convent of Carmelites, as it was being sung, the Blessed Virgin appeared to the whole Choir, and said: Sing devoutly, my children, for I will show you my Son Jesus in this world and in the next; after which she showed them her divine Son, whom she held in her arms. We must therefore attend this holy action with all possible attention and devotion, considering that the Blessed Virgin has adopted us for her children in a particular way, without our having deserved it in any place. Direction can be done in this way:

“Holy Virgin, my good Mother, I offer you the action that I am going to do, which is to sing your praises. I want to fulfill it with all the perfection that will be

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as possible for your glory, and to beg you to take me under your holy protection, to make me your dear Son favorable, and to take care of me at the hour of my death.

4. OF THE CHAPTER.

The infirmity of nature cannot guarantee us from falling into several faults, so much by weakness, bare negligence, sometimes even by malice: this is why Religion, applied to the spiritual good of its children, has ordered that we have the remedy for an evil so frequent, instituting the Exercise of Coulpes and Chapters for the abolition of external faults.

In this Holy Exercise, the devil loses in a moment what he has won over religious souls over a long period of time: for, discovering his faults with humility and contrition, and being ready to receive penance for them, he is deprived of all the the advantage he had been given by committing them.

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Indeed, by the humble accusation and manifestation of our faults, we disavow them; we purify our hearts, we satisfy the justice of God, we avoid the confusion of universal judgment, we repair the scandal and bad example we have given, we acquire the virtue of humility and self-contempt, we let us prevent Religion from falling, seeing that evil, however small it may be, does not remain unpunished and does not take root. This is the great benefit of this Holy Exercise.

Novices usually tell their faults once a week at the Novitiate, and at the Chapter whenever there are any: they must therefore, before saying them, examine themselves a little on the external and manifest faults that they have committed, because the interiors are not said there; they are reserved for Confession. Management can be done in this way.

"My God, give me the grace to accuse myself of my faults with humility, to receive with patience the remonstrances that will be made to me, and to take advantage of the advice that is given to me.

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will give. Blessed Virgin, obtain this grace for me, I implore you.”

5. SERMON ATTENDANCE.

We must regard the preachers as being sent to us from God to make us hear his word, which must lead us to listen to them with reverence and a desire to learn the truths of heaven which they preach to us; to attend their speeches with the same affection as the Magdalene stood at the feet of Our Lord when he preached, or like the first Christians converted by the Apostles, who visibly drew the Holy Spirit upon them, by the great devotion that they had to hear them. We must therefore go to the instructions only with a recollected spirit and a sincere intention to draw fruit from them for the salvation of our soul, and not to satisfy our curiosity. Management can be done as follows:

“Holy Spirit, who are the Doctor of the Church, dispose my heart to receive

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the words of life that you are going to utter through the Minister of the Word who is your organ; grant me the grace to draw from it fruits worthy of heaven. Blessed Virgin, I beg to obtain this favor for me, and ask you the same grace for all those who, like me, are going to attend this Instruction.”

6. FROM THE PARLOR.

One cannot excuse the nuns who wish to be visited by seculars, for it is a sure mark that they have a connection with the world, since they want to maintain its commerce. Our Lord says that he is unworthy of the kingdom of heaven, who, after having put his hand to the plow, looks behind him.

One must have a great distance from the world which one has left for God, and experience often makes one see and feel that one loses the rest of the soul there, the mind finding itself filled with several thoughts which occupy and often

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disturb prayer. But, however, obedience having to be the sole rule of our actions, as the love of God must be its principle, we must go there when it commands us to, or when charity requires it.

When we are warned to go there, we must immediately try to raise our hearts to God, ask him for the grace not to say or do anything there that could displease him or that would set us back from our spiritual advancement. And, to obtain this grace, we can, if we want, use the following Direction:

“Lord, I thought I had left the world, and now it is looking for me; do not allow my heart to ever take any affection there; it is purely to satisfy obedience that I will communicate with him for a moment. Give me the grace to be very attentive to myself, and not to say anything that might displease you or alienate me from you.

On entering the Parlor, we kneel down to say theAve Maria to the Blessed Virgin, in order to ask for her assistance, as it is marked on the Exaction Paper, and we observe

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the other small regulations which are marked there concerning the manner of opening the gate, and the religious countenance with which one must be there, taking care not to burst out laughing there, which is against modesty. One does not usually stay there more than half an hour, unless it is for distant persons, who come seldom, or for some other special occasion which does not often happen: and in this case, one must ask permission.

7. HOW TO BEHAVE IN THE INFIRMARY.

Our Lord, after whom we are going, having been a Man of Sorrows and covered with wounds in all parts of his body, has sanctified in himself all the diseases, weaknesses and pains that befall us, and he wants that we experienced, following his example, what it is to suffer; he quite often sends diseases to his servants

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and servants, to test, in suffering, the truth of their love for him. We must therefore, when God sends us some, receive them with thanksgiving, and say with all our heart: This infirmity, Lord, which you send to me, is a visit from you; I receive it with submission of spirit, resigning myself in everything to your holy will.

When one of our Sisters finds herself attacked by some illness, she must simply tell the Prioress or her Mistress, without exaggerating or diminishing it, not with the intention of being relieved, recognizing herself unworthy of it, but to have the merit of obedience in the suffering of his evil.

If she is sent to the Infirmary and she can kneel, she will do so before an image and offer herself to God as a victim entirely devoted to his holy will, for life or for death, for sickness or health, for as long as the Lord pleases.

She will absolutely allow herself to be treated according to the order of Obedience, and will take the remedies

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whatever repugnance she may feel for it; remembering that it is then the time to show the virtue that one must have acquired, and to put into practice the great desire that one has to suffer and to mortify oneself for God: if the repugnance is very great, it will try to conquer her generously, believing on the one hand that it is God who sends her this bitter cup, and on the other, considering the love with which Jesus Christ drank the chalice of his Passion, she will say to herself -even : Could I refuse this potion that my Heavenly Father sends me and that my Savior Jesus Christ drank first? She must be very obedient to the Nurse, and not too easily complain or exaggerate her illness, but simply say as she is, when asked.

When she begins to get up and is convalescing, she will try to do herself all the little favors that her condition will allow, telling the Nurse about it, to save her the trouble; helping, if she can, to make her bed, to clean herself after the meal, to do some small tidying up in the Infirmary,

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and will also do a few small works to escape idleness and divert the mind. All of this, of course, as much as the evil can allow him, without inconveniencing himself much.

It will be able to recreate with those who come there to see, or with the Nurses, with the reserve however of the hours of Community, during which one must keep silence, if it is not for something necessary. For the great silence, one must always keep it, unless there is a great necessity, or the evil is great.

She must try to raise her spirit to God from time to time, either by some gentle and tranquil aspiration, or by interior recollection.

As soon as she is better and sees herself in a condition to return to her Observance, and to go to some part of the Office, she must ask permission, showing much fervor thereon; but if obedience does not yet permit it, she will submit to it with great simplicity and resignation.

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8. DEVOTION TO VARIOUS SAINTS.

1. To the Blessed Virgin.

As beloved and cherished children of the Blessed Virgin, we must honor her with a singular tenderness, recognizing her for our liberator, who placed us in the Order dedicated to her, which she cherishes among all the others. , and where one makes very particular profession to serve it; we must therefore often put her before our eyes, in order to imitate her, and consider that all the respect that we pay her must tend to advance in virtue, by following her example. For of what use is it to render her outward honour, if at the same time we despise the Holy Instructions which she has given us, not only by her words, but still more by all the actions of her life? The Blessed Virgin was always occupied, in the secrecy of her interior, in continual meditation

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holy things, lifting up his spirit above the earth, and keeping him continually united with God.

This is what we must try to do in the profession we have embraced: living in secret, withdrawing within ourselves to remain constantly in the presence of God, to listen to his voice there in profound silence, and to enjoy there that peace and that joy with which he fills those who seek him and who give themselves to him with all the extent of their heart.

Finally, we must take the Blessed Virgin for our model in everything, and put her often before our eyes when we are in the exercise of some virtue, in order to imitate her. We must think that we will not be true Children of Mount Carmel if, in imitation of all the Saints of our Order, we do not have a special tenderness for this worthy Mother. We must have recourse to her in all our needs, in our pains and temptations; to offer all our actions to God, by means of him; make some special prayer to him a day, and rejoice

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when we sing something in his honor.

We must also honor our Scapular, as a gift from his hand. Blessed Hyacinthe of Saint-Laurent usually said that he respected it as much as a Relic, since it was a present from the Blessed Virgin. On taking it and leaving it, one must kiss it devoutly; some even get down on their knees to take it in the morning.

2. To Saint Joseph.

From this same source comes the sensitive devotion that we must have for our Father Saint Joseph, who deserved, by his great virtues, to be Spouse of the Blessed Virgin. His humility and the love he had for the hidden life prevented him from rising from this great dignity and from the choice that God had made of him to be the nourisher of his Son. He remained with joy in a low and contemptible state according to the world, leading a life entirely interior and hidden in God. This is what we must imitate in this Saint, considering how

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his glory is immense in heaven, and how efficacious is his intercession. Devotion to this Saint has been much recommended to us by our Mother Saint Thérèse, and has always been greatly venerated in our Order, as well as devotion to Saint Anne, since she deserved to be mother of the Blessed Virgin.

3. To Saint Therese.    

We must also honor our Mother Saint Thérèse with a very particular tenderness, and try to imitate her virtues, and above all the great zeal she had for the salvation of souls, which made her shed so many tears before God, for those who were getting lost, and which made her say that she would have given a thousand lives to save just one. It was this zeal that led her to establish our Reformation, as we see in these writings where she tells us: "One of your main duties is to occupy yourselves all in praying for the preachers, for the defenders of the Church, and for the men who support her contention,

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and who work for the salvation of souls.

She tells us again in the Path of Perfection: “O my dear Sisters in Jesus Christ, help me to ask Our Lord for the grace that so many souls are not lost. This is why he has assembled you here: this is your vocation; these are your real business; it must be the object of your desires and the subject of your tears; this is what you must always use your prayers for.”

These are the own words and sentiments of our Holy Mother Teresa, by which we see that one of our great obligations is to pray for all the needs of the Church, and that we cannot call ourselves true Carmelites, nor worthy daughters of such a zealous Mother, if we do not discharge this duty faithfully. Let us pray to her daily to communicate her spirit to us, and to give us the grace to observe exactly our Rules and Constitutions, and all the holy teachings she has given us.

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4. To Saint Elijah and Saint Elisha.

We must also have great devotion to our Father Saint Elijah, who dwelt in the caves and solitude of Mount Carmel, as well as to Saint Elisha who was his first disciple and successor. They were the first who laid the foundations of our Order on Mount Carmel, living in the old law, more than 900 years before the birth of Jesus Christ.

5. To Saint John the Baptist.

Saint John the Baptist, who is our Patriarch in the New Testament, and who lived in the desert, must still be our model. What was he doing in his desert? He lived there separated from everything, in profound silence and marvelous penance; he was always united with God, and occupied with him; finally, he was like the voice of a man crying out, for he spoke unceasingly to God through prayer.

Let us try to follow his example, and remember that we embraced a life

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of penance, of which the Silence, the Retreat and the Prayer form the principal parts; let us have a particular devotion for this great Saint, so that he may obtain for us from God the grace to fulfill our duties well in our solitude.

6. To the Holy Guardian Angel.

We must have a great respect for our Guardian Angel, believing, as it is the truth, that he is always at our side, if we do not force him to move away from him by some fault. When this has happened, we must immediately ask him for forgiveness, and humbly pray to him to come closer, and not to abandon us any longer.

We must also often remember the charitable care that our Guardian Angels have of us, the perils from which they preserve us, the devil laying traps for us everywhere. Hey! how could we escape him, if we did not have Angels to guide and protect us?

Their presence should lead us to stand

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always, in great modesty, either privately or in community, and doing nothing that might displease them. We are to honor them as our governors and preceptors, given to us by our Heavenly Father, to whom they give account of our wrongdoings.

9. OF THE PATRON SAINT THAT WE DRAW EVERY MONTH.

Before drawing the tickets, we invoke the Holy Spirit through the Antiphon Come, Sancte Spiritus. And, in particular, we can, if we want, use the following Direction:

"Holy Spirit, who penetrates the secret of hearts, and who sees clearly the needs of my soul, cast lots for me the Saint whom you wish me to honor, and the virtue which you know I have greatest need of. . Holy Virgin, lead my hand to choose the ticket that is most suitable for me.

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After having drawn one's note, when one is in one's private person, one must invoke the Saint who has fallen, asking him to be good enough to take us into his protection, to have pleasant the devotion that we devote to him during the course of this month, and to help us, by his intercession, in the exercise of the virtue which we desire to practice, in his imitation.

It would be good to do a little prayer on the sentence and on the virtue that has fallen to us. Every day, morning and evening, one must say some prayer in honor of one's patron saint, to commend oneself to him.

We must also recommend, every day, to Our Lord the things for which we are obliged to pray by his note.

10. HOW TO ARRANGE FOR THE PRINCIPAL FEASTS OF THE YEAR.

I. PRELIMINARY INSTRUCTION.

To properly solemnize the Feasts, three things are necessary.

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1° Prepare well before the Feast.

2° Use well the day of the Feast.

3° Saintly pass the Octave of the Feast.

1. Of Preparation.

On the three days which precede each Solemn Feast of the Mysteries of Our Lord, those of the Blessed Virgin, and the other principal ones which are celebrated by the Church, it would be good to apply ourselves interiorly to observing the following:

1° To take very particular care of the purity of one's heart, not giving voluntary entry to anything, however trivial, which could offend God and prevent the good he wants to do for us on the day of the Feast.

2° Apply yourself to doing your exercises with as much interior spirit as you can, and try to have frequent thoughts of the Feast for which you are preparing; often make aspirations to God in conformity with the Mystery.

3° To exercise in various actions the virtues of charity, patience, gentleness, interior mortification, and the like, which

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are like so many beautiful ornaments that embellish our soul in which we must receive Our Lord.

2. For the day of the Feast.

We must prepare with particular care for the reception of the Sacraments, and, after Communion, thank God for the grace he has given us in the Mystery that we are celebrating that day, and ask him to apply it to us. Deserves that.

If they are Feasts of the Blessed Virgin or of the Saints, thank Our Lord for the grace he has given them, and for the glory he has given them; beg him, by their merits, to grant us the efficacious means of imitating their virtues.

It would also be good to pray on the Mystery or subject of the Feast, and practice the exercises of the day in memory of this Mystery, trying to honor it in all our actions: to behave interiorly before God, with devotion, the meditation and practice of the virtues required by the Feast and the

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graces which we have received, or which we hope to receive on this holy day.

3. For the Octave.

It is necessary to work to preserve devotion and inner recollection as much as possible, both in the Octave and on the day of the Feast; carefully guarding against offending God, and willingly displeasing him.

Sometimes make aspirations to God on the subject of the Mystery or the Feast, and some practice of virtue in his honor. . To behave interiorly in a way that testifies to the holiness of these eight days, and the continual memory that one makes of them: the intention of the Church being that one preserves the memory of them, and that one continues the practices of devotion to their honor.

2. INSTRUCTION FOR PARTICULAR HOLIDAYS.

1. For the season of Advent.

To pass this holy time with fruit and usefulness, we must try to occupy ourselves interiorly with the great virtues that Our Lord

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practices in the womb of his Mother: from the first moment of his life he suffers a very narrow prison there, in a constrained, uncomfortable, annihilated posture, and in profound obscurity. He offers himself, in this suffering state, to God his Father, as a victim destined to bear the penalty for our sins.

There he practices poverty and indigence; he not only strips himself of all things, but he leaves himself and gives himself to us. What shall we return to him for so many favors? He only asks for our heart: let us not refuse it. Let us empty it of all things; he wants to be its sole possessor, and let us try to adorn it, during this holy time, with the virtues which he himself comes to teach us, and of which he gives us the example, so that he may find in us a remain worthy of him.

Let us also consider that he is in this virginal womb, always occupied with God his Father, in continual solitude and prayer: this so holy place is like a lovely desert where this divine Child hides himself, and where he makes the place of his rest. If we want the Son

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of God take on new life in our soul, let us love recollection; let us close the door of our senses, return within ourselves, and call there Jesus our beloved; let us converse with him familiarly, and let all our actions, both exterior and interior, relate to honoring him in this great Mystery. Let us address the three Persons of the Holy Trinity: conjuring the Father to give us his beloved Son; the Son, may he deign to give himself to us, and the Holy Spirit, may he dispose us to receive him.

Let us also have recourse to the Blessed Virgin, and consider that she imitated the disposition of Jesus Christ whom she bore in her womb. She tried to remain attentive to him, and as diligent in adoring and praying to him as he himself was attentive in praying to his Father. She believed that if she was so happy as carrying God in her womb, she owed nothing else but to give him glory in a profound annihilation of all that she was, and in an admiration of all the wonders he had. do in it. It is in this disposition, by this attention to ourselves, that we must

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prepare ourselves for the coming of this divine Child. Let us pray to the Blessed Virgin to give it to us, and that our hearts be the cradle where she deigns to place it.

2. For the Christmas Party.

The holy day of Christmas having come, let us revive our devotion and present ourselves with the deepest humility before the Savior whose birth we celebrate; let us adore with all our heart him whom we see thus humiliated, obliged to retire to a stable, lying in a manger, among animals, reduced to extreme poverty and dearth of all things: let us offer him our soul as a stable and our heart for a nativity scene, begging him that, since he did not disdain the one where he was, it would please him to have pleasant the dwelling which we wish to consecrate to him, not for a time, but for all the rest of our life and for eternity.

Let us try, during all this day and the following Feasts, to keep ourselves, as much as possible, with an attentive spirit in this holy stable, near this divine Child; considering

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that, God though he is, he annihilated himself and became man for love of us. Let us prostrate ourselves humbly at his feet, watering them with our tears; let us offer him the sacrifice of our heart, giving it to him entirely; let us make him a perfect abandonment of ourselves, so that we may be entirely his forever, and he may act in us for whatever he pleases, without any resistance on our part. Let us tell him all our sorrows in confidence; let us discover to him all the movements of our heart; let us show him our gratitude for the infinite love he has shown us; let us visit him often in spirit, during the forty days that he was good enough to remain in this poor stable; invite the Angels to come with us to adore him; let us pray to the Blessed Virgin to receive us in her company, and to allow us to render some small services to her dear Son.

3. For the season of Lent.

We must consider that the Son of God, having come to earth to be our model, was good enough to retire to the desert for

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forty days, and to fast during the space of this same time, to animate by an example so holy and so salutary, and to sanctify all our actions.

Our fast, therefore, should be an imitation of his, however weak and imperfect it may be; but this fast would be little of itself, if it were not accompanied by the other circumstances which must render it agreeable in the eyes of our adorable Saviour, who complained of the Jews, telling them that he did not consider all their fasts nor all their sorrows, because they were still doing their own will as before. “But here,” he said, “is the fast I ask of you: break the chains and bonds that bind you; fight your bad habits, your self-esteem, your own judgment, your own will; try to avoid everything that can displease God, and to accompany your fast with all kinds of good works, because in vain do you want to raise yourself to God by fasting, if your passions always bring you down to earth.

One of the means that God provides for us to

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to conquer them is continual prayer, in imitation of the Savior who spent these forty days in prayer. Let us therefore try, in imitation of him, to keep ourselves, as much as we can, united to God, and to occupy ourselves often, during this Holy Quarantine, with the pains, insults and contempt that our adorable Savior suffered during his Passion: this holy time being destined more particularly to accompany him in his sufferings, participating in them, as much as we can, by interior and exterior mortification, cherishing the little opportunities that present themselves, as so many means of uniting ourselves more closely to our dear husband.

4. For the Seven Stations of Good Friday.

We can, if we want, make use of the following prayers, asking Our Lord to apply to us the same indulgences that he grants to those who make the Stations of Jerusalem.

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I.

The first Station will be the Cenacle where Our Lord instituted the Blessed Sacrament of his Body and his Blood, and where he communicated the holy Apostles.

PRAY.

“I give you thanks, my adorable Saviour, who, by an adorable invention of your love, found the means to dwell with us, instituting this adorable Sacrament to serve us as spiritual nourishment. I beg you, my divine Saviour, to renew me entirely, so that I may become an abode that will be agreeable to you; give me true devotion and tender hearted affection towards you in this adorable Sacrament; purify my soul by your grace; embalm it with the pleasant perfume of the virtues, so that, often receiving you with the dispositions you request, I may be united to you, and live so much of your life, that I

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may say that I no longer live, but that it is you who live in me.”

Un Padre and Ave to ask for devotion to the Blessed Sacrament and the grace never to make Communion unworthy.

II.

The second Station will be the Garden of Olives, where Our Lord prayed on blood and water.

PRAY.

“I give you thanks, my adorable Saviour, who, at the approach of your death, withdrew you to the Garden of Olives with your Apostles; and, after having testified to them that your soul was sad unto death, make a long prayer to your Father, you put yourself entirely at his disposal, saying that his will was done, and not yours, and who, by a sweat unheard of, let out of your veins such an abundance of blood that the earth was soaked with it; make, my God, that I have recourse to you by prayer in all

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my needs, and that I abandon myself to your providence, without regard to my own will or my interests; that I never flee the evils of this life, and that the fear of adversities never diverts me from doing any good; but let me receive all things with a submissive and quiet mind, as from your hand; that I bear them all courageously for the love of you. Grant, my God, that my heart, pierced with bitter sorrow for the offenses I have committed, be moved by my miseries; may the memory of those streams of blood which you shed to cleanse my soul of its defilements, excite in me tears of penance and compunction, so that I may feel the effects of your mercy.”

Un Padre and Ave to ask for resignation to the will of God, contrition and final grace.

III.

At the third Station, we will consider as Our Lord was taken, bound by the

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Jews, and led from court to court, where he suffered a thousand mockeries, reproaches and indignities.

PRAY.

“I give you thanks, my adorable Jesus, who, in the cruel night which preceded your bloody death, were exposed for me to the contempt and the laughingstock of your enemies, who were outraged with slaps and punches, who suffered for I so much blasphemy and so much indignity, and who all morning was led from tribunal to tribunal, where you endured unheard-of torments without complaining. And me, Lord, you know how sorry it is for me to bear even the smallest pains. You know that I have no virtue, that my will is cowardly, and that my best desires are full of coldness. Lord, mercifully succor my weakness and give me your grace, so that no effort of the adversities of the earth will terrify me or bring me down. Make sure that the evils that could befall me do not deprive me

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courage, and that offenses trouble me not; but that, receiving everything with thanksgiving, I bring everything back to the glory of your holy name.”

Un Padre and Ave to ask for the spirit of mortification.

IV.

The fourth Station will be the hall of the scourging, where Our Lord was torn with whips.

PRAY.

"I give you thanks, sweet Jesus, who consented to be stripped of your clothes, to expose your very pure and very sacred flesh to the sight of the soldiers, to be tied naked to a column, to endure a hail there. frightful blows of the whip, which brought out from all the veins of your body a great abundance of blood, with which you remained completely covered, and which lovingly suffered this painful torment, thinking of me in the midst of your pains, and offering them to the Eternal Father, in satisfaction

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from all my trespasses, and to heal my wounds with yours. Remove from my heart all evil thoughts; strip me of the old man, to put on me the new, which was created according to God, in holiness, in truth and in righteousness. Give me the grace to bear patiently and humbly the blows with which your paternal hand will please to chastise me. May the sight of your innocent and pure flesh, treated with such rigor, effectively lead me to chastise my defiled and criminal flesh, and may the consideration of your wounds make me always ready to die, rather than do anything that may displease you."

Un Padre and Ave to ask for purity of body and spirit, and for the extermination of the sin of impurity in everyone.

V.

The fifth Station will be the Praetorium of Pilate, where Our Lord was crowned with thorns.

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PRAY.

“I give you thanks, my adorable Jesus, who, after having endured so many lashes, after having shed so much blood, was still outraged by impious people, new ridicule and new insults; who, to make you more ashamed, clothed you with a purple mantle, clasped your sacred head with a crown of thorns, put a reed in your hand instead of a scepter, and, bending the knee before you , said to you in mockery: Hail, King of the Jews. Pierce me: heart with the memory of your sorrows, and wound it with the sharp arrows of your fervent charity; grant that I love only you, that I occupy myself only with you, that I find only in you my rest and my assurance; that no affliction, no pain, no persecution can ever separate me from you.”

Un Padre and Ave to ask for humility, and for the extermination of the sins of vanity, ambition, and pride in everyone.

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VI.

At the Sixth Station, we will consider Our Lord going up the mountain of Calvary, laden with the heavy burden of his Cross.

PRAY.

“I give you thanks, my adorable Saviour, who, not being satiated with so many outrages and torments suffered on my account, still wished, on your already so tired shoulders, to carry to Calvary the cross on which you were to be bound for the expiation of my sins and those of everyone. Grant me the grace to courageously embrace all the crosses that your providence will please to send me; and since you invite me to come after you, to deny myself and carry my cross, give me the strength to accomplish what you command me; and make that, imitating by love the example of the virtues which you practiced during the course of your Passion, I become worthy to follow you faithfully

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until death, as I desire."

Un Padre and Ave for those in mortal sin, and for the conversion of hardened sinners.

VII

The Seventh Station will be Calvary where Our Lord was crucified and died on the Cross.

PRAY.

"I give you thanks, sweet Jesus, who suffered your body, fastened with large nails to the wood of the cross, to be lifted from the ground, and to remain the space of three hours suspended from this post, as painful as it was. infamous, where you felt in all your members inconceivable sorrows, which you offered to your Father, in order to satisfy his justice which I had offended. I adore you, O my God, on this gallows, with all the more respect, as you are humbled there on my subject; I beg you to fulfill your word in me, by drawing me

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to you in such a way that being detached from all affection for things here below, I concern myself only with you, that I love only you, O my love and my all, and that I find in you alone my rest and my assurance, for time and eternity. Apply to me also, my Saviour, the virtue of the adorable blood which flowed from your sacred wounds; purify me and sanctify me by the unction of this divine balm; offer it to your Heavenly Father, as the only remedy for all my ills; make my heart, by an ardent love, deserve to drink, and my tongue to collect the precious drops of this divine blood.

Un Padre and Ave to ask for a good death, and detachment from all earthly things, to live only the life of Jesus.

5. For the Feast and the Octave of the Ascension.

On the day of the Ascension, we must strive to unite ourselves strongly to Our Lord Jesus Christ in Holy Communion, praying to him to take full possession of our heart, and to place our soul in a

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such a state, that there is nothing in it that can prevent it from rising with it, and always tending towards the sky, which is the place where it is going.

The hour of noon having come, we must go to the Choir with devotion and inner recollection, imagining that we are going with Our Lord to the Mountain of Olives, and that we are walking in the company of his Apostles and Disciples, to see this glorious Ascension of the Son of God who will ascend to heaven, so that we may ascend with him; and, as we cannot ascend it with our body, let us ascend it by the desires of our soul. But let us understand that our adorable Savior descended before ascending, and that we must, in imitation of him, humble ourselves in order to be elevated.

Being in the Choir, let us imagine this great Mountain, and consider all the things that happened in this place. Let us adore Our Lord deeply with the Apostles; let us give him infinite thanks for all he has done and suffered for our salvation.

Let us beseech him to allow us to kiss his sacred wounds, and to retire there as

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the most pleasant abode of our spirit, so that, ascending to heaven, we may follow it inseparably, and there always hold our hearts and minds there, as the place where our treasure is.

Let us beg him to give us his holy blessing, and watch him rise by his own virtue, imagining that he says to us: “I am going to prepare an eternal dwelling place for you in my house; do not attach yourself to the earth: it is not there that you must establish yourself; leave this division to the reprobate; your inheritance is in heaven.” Let us try to make ourselves worthy of this favour; let us walk on its vestiges; let us follow in the footsteps of his humility, his gentleness, his patience, his poverty, his obedience and the contempt he showed for the vanities of the world. It is through this that we shall enter into the glory which he now possesses, where we are to adore him with all the heavenly Court, uniting ourselves in all the praises given to him, and thanking the Eternal Father for l to have given as redeemer and mediator.

The ten days from the Ascension to the

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Pentecost are more particularly consecrated to retreat, to dispose oneself to receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and to imitate the Apostles, who, after having seen Our Lord ascend to heaven, withdrew into the Cenacle, departing from the noise and of the tumult of the people, applying themselves to fervent prayers to advance the coming of the Holy Spirit, which had been promised to them, knowing that the divine promises are fulfilled by means of prayer.

Let us enter in spirit into the Cenacle, let us prostrate ourselves at the feet of the Apostles, begging them to accept us in their holy company and to be willing to allow our unworthy prayers and all our exercises to gain strength and value from the effective merit of theirs.

Let's see again what they did when they saw Jesus Christ separated from them. They began to reflect on how little use they had made of so great an advantage as they had of being his Disciples: for they could not hide from themselves so many imperfections which they have shown and which Jesus Christ Himself has so often reproached them with so much force; they remembered

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that weakness, that languor of their faith, which was accustomed to seeing with an indifferent eye the marvels that God was doing with brilliance every day in their presence. They found themselves confounded at having so little imitated, until then, the life of the Saviour, his profound humility, his assiduity in prayer, his retirement, and so many other admirable virtues of which he had given them the example during his life.

We have only to propose to ourselves this model of the Apostles, and these holy dispositions, in which they spent these ten days, to prepare us for the descent of the Holy Spirit; we must see if our piety has not been rather an appearance of piety than a real piety; if our actions have been inwardly animated by the Spirit of God; if we have done the holiest deeds with the spirit of holiness in which they should be done. Do we not render useless so many advantages that we have received from God for our salvation? do we approach Jesus Christ, in our Communions, with the faith and reverence that we should? are we getting the fruit he wants us to get?

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do we see enough of the faults we have committed against this spirit of love which we await, and against the charity which he has poured out in the hearts of the faithful?

The Apostles were sensitive, during these ten days, to the faults by which they had been able to alter charity, and grieving the Holy Spirit; but, in afflicting themselves with these faults, they did not allow themselves to be discouraged, and this is still what we must imitate. They saw all their imperfections without being troubled. They sighed peacefully, in the hope that God would soon bring the remedy, by this spirit of charity which he was going to spread in them. They were content to peacefully bear this state of imperfection, and to humble themselves deeply in the sight of so many weaknesses; the more confusion and pain they had, the more they cried out to God, that he might clothe them with his almighty virtue, as the Son of God had promised them, and change them into new creatures.

Let's do what they did; see our faults; let us condemn them, let us mourn over them, and pray to God, in this holy time, to shed on us the one who alone can bring the remedy;

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let us empty our hearts of so many imperfections, so that the Holy Spirit, finding in us this great void, fills it with his graces.

Let us address ourselves to the Blessed Virgin, begging her to intercede for us with the Eternal Father and his Son, so that they may grant us the fullness of the Holy Spirit; let us daily, during this holy time, make some special prayers to obtain this grace, and let us try to keep ourselves well collected and faithful to all our duties; let us also pray for the Church and for everyone in general.

6° For the Octave of the Blessed Sacrament.

We put here the little Octave that our Blessed Father Cardinal de Bérulle made to occupy himself interiorly before the Blessed Sacrament, during this holy time.

Scripture, speaking of some days in which God had done wonders, calls them days of redemption, or of rejoicing, or of sanctification, thus giving them a name in conformity with the effects operated in them; we must imitate the language of scripture

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holy, giving some particular names to all the days of this holy Octave, exercising our soul in interior actions, corresponding to each name.

I. The first day will be called love day, because the soul will be a gaze of love towards Jesus Christ, continually going to him by this way of love which is the one he asks for; and for this reason, the first thought must be that this Mystery is a Mystery of Love, as Saint John seems to assure us when he says: Jesus, having loved his own, he loved them to the end, establishing this Mystery of Love. In fact, if we had our eyes open to see Jesus in this Mystery, we would see him all, full of love, all on fire with love, and we would know that it is through this Sacrament that he wants to come to earth. of our heart, to kindle there the fire of his divine love. Isn't it quite reasonable that we take a day to apply ourselves to this Love, rendering Jesus love for love? So our thoughts on this day, our dispositions, our desires, our intentions, and generally all our actions should be only

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of love: so that we see all things in us bear the mark of Jesus by a fullness of occupation towards his love.

II. The second day will be a worship day, the soul being filled with the greatness of Jesus hidden under the veil of this Mystery, since he is as great there as at the right hand of the Father. As it is remarked in the sacred pages that the loving Seraphim of God are around his throne in very great respect, in special honor and in continual adoration of his grandeurs; in the same way we must be on earth, close to this Mystery, Seraphim all aflame with love; we must take pains to be all this day in reverence, homage and adoration towards Jesus who bears the quality of Great, and who wanted to place his greatness among us to be adored there. We must therefore, in all our actions, both interior and exterior, remain in this disposition, by a zeal for his honor, which leads us to recognize and revere all the more his greatness, that he seems to hide them in this Mystery. , to accommodate us.

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III. The third day must be a Day of Donation, so that we may be continually honoring the perfect gift that Jesus Christ makes to us of himself in this adorable Mystery: which compels us to return to him, by making a gift to him. whole of us, to honor that which he has made of him for us. It would be fitting to bring Communion back to this plan, to receive Jesus Christ, to be in us, since he is willing to come and lodge there, and consecrate us all to him, offering him our heart, our soul and our body, so that he may take full possession of it forever: and even we should appear this day before the Most Blessed Sacrament only to adore a God giving himself to us, and to correspond to him, giving us to him with all our power.

IV. The fourth day will be named Day of Humility, because our exercise on this day must be to honor the humility of Jesus in this Mystery, which will last until the end of the world, trying to enter into deep humility, not even wanting to appear in what God may have put in us, to imitate Jesus Christ,

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which hides the fullness of greatness, glory and divinity residing in him in this Mystery. And all the visits that the soul will make to the Most Blessed Sacrament on this day will be referred to the growth of humility in it, throughout its life, learning to be humble, from Jesus the humble God, who teaches it the humility in this state, more by works than by words; but, besides this practice of humility, into which the same Angels can enter, we must enter into another, corresponding to our faults and offences, presenting ourselves often before Jesus in this Mystery, to humiliate and confuse us, for having done such a bad use of him and of his graces, by our quality of sinners, having so rarely adored him and visited him at the altar; having approached him to receive him, with so little disposition, and from the little profit that we have drawn from his coming within us: in this view it would be appropriate, by the zeal to satisfy in some way all these faults, to say often before the Blessed Sacrament the Miserere in a spirit of contrition, joining

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for the exterior what Our Lord will inspire in the soul.

V. The fifth day will be a Memorial Day, your soul assuming the will that Jesus had to establish this Mystery in memory of him and his states, according to his word: care will be taken to apply oneself to the holy memory of Jesus and his life on earth, going on various occasions before the Blessed Sacrament, to adore him, to see him and to give him thanks for all he has done and suffered for us in this world; thinking sometimes of his incarnation, sometimes of his birth, of his sufferings and of his death, and trying to win some particular grace from his various Mysteries which are renewed in this one, since he represents them all; and begging Our Lord to apply their salutary effects to us, for which to receive it is often necessary to offer our soul and our heart to Jesus, the King of souls and hearts, begging Him to give us, in today's Communion, a memory of these Mysteries, and to erase in us the memory of all other things.

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VI. The sixth day must be a Day of Union: for Jesus, in whom divinity and humanity are united in the same person, wanted to work this Mystery, to unite us to his divinity and to his humanity, since indeed for this reason he enters into our soul; and after having adored this union of the two different natures in Jesus, and honored the design which he has of uniting himself to us, we must pass this day in sighs, languor and desires towards this union so intimate and close, which goes adoring his, and make several elevations of our soul, by this spirit, regretting to have been so little linked to him in the past, uniting ourselves at all times to him by acts so powerful and so effective, that we can say with his Apostle, that nothing can separate us from Jesus, asking him for this grace in Holy Communion.

VII. The seventh day will be a day of life, because Jesus, in this Mystery, is a bread of life, as he says himself, that he gives himself to us, to give us more abundantly to the true life which is in him, according to the well-known Apostle. liked: so that we must not

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do something other than adore Jesus today, as the life of our soul, thanking him for what he gives himself to her, to maintain her spiritual life. Regret having had it so weakly and so imperfectly in you, breathe only this holy life, and approach him to receive the increase of this divine life, knowing that, as the soul is united to the body only for give it life, so Jesus unites himself to our soul only to give it life.

VIII. The eighth day will be a Day of Transformation in our soul, knowing that the intention of Jesus in this Sacrament is to make us another himself, by a perfect change of us in him; wanting to give us back his images, as he is the image of the Father. After having adored him in his most perfect likeness to God the Father, whom he represented so naively in his most holy life, that he said with truth to his Apostles, that whoever saw him saw his Father, the soul will present herself to him to be made again in his image and to bear his likeness, desiring nothing more than to renounce and die to herself

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to be completely changed and transformed into Jesus Christ; no longer living a low, vicious and imperfect life, but a holy, pure, innocent, sublime and perfect life, which represents and expresses so much the admirable life of Jesus on earth, that this ineffable Mystery must engrave, imprint line by line, so that she can appropriate these words: I live, but it is no longer I who live, it is Jesus who lives in me, by grace, as he must live one day by his glory.

7. For the Feast of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin

Little Interview, which teaches us that we must take the Blessed Virgin

for our model in the renewal of our Vows.

Jesus Christ wants us to make the day of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin a day of our Presentation; but, so that this action may be agreeable to him, let us unite ourselves to the Blessed Virgin; let us make our offering with her and try to enter into the same spirit and in the same dispositions in which she was.

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Let us present ourselves as her, and for that reason let us consider this excellent model, and see that it was not on this day that she made her first sacrifice. She had vowed and given herself to God from her conception; and that day was properly the day of the renewal of the vows and of the sacrifice which she had made at the first moment of her life.

The sacrifice of the Blessed Virgin was a voluntary and heartfelt sacrifice; she was not satisfied with a few words to solemnly testify that she wanted to belong to God. What her mouth said, what she promised, her heart said and promised. But what will it be for us, if we contradict in the interior of our soul what we pronounce publicly today at the feet of Jesus Christ? Let us pray to Our Lord not to allow us to fall into such a great fault and that he grant us the grace to interiorly confirm this public act that we are making today of a new consecration.

The Blessed Virgin made an entire sacrifice by giving herself to God; she renounced everything for God. If we want to make a worthy sacrifice

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of the Master to whom we offer it, let us retain nothing of the victim. There are almost always, even in the most virtuous souls, certain remnants of self-love, certain inclinations from which the heart has never been able to detach itself well: it is there that one must bring the fire, this fire sacred of divine love. You deserve everything, Lord; you want it all, and you will have it all.

The sacrifice made by the Blessed Virgin was followed in practice by a perfect renewal. Weigh this word carefully: In practice ; this is the essential point. Because we make enough promises to God, we make enough resolutions, but the effect does not always correspond to them. We saw the Blessed Virgin, since her Presentation, more fervent than ever, more assiduous than ever in the Temple and at the foot of the altars, more devoted than ever to the exercises of Religion. Alas! each year, we renew the same vows; each year we contract the same commitments with God; but, for so many years, what change do we see in us? Are we more regular? Ah! maybe less than when we started

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to wear the religious habit. Let us therefore return to ourselves, confuse ourselves, and see that the zeal which appeared in the Blessed Virgin after her Presentation did not cool with time: she always belonged to God. Let us try, like her, to always support, by a holy perseverance, the sacrifice we are making today, and let us inflame ourselves more from one day to the next until the last breath of our life. This is what Jesus Christ expects of us and what he asks of us. And, having thus given ourselves to him, we must also be persuaded that he will give himself to us.

Jesus Christ gives himself to us by his grace; he has his hands full of blessings, and he is ready to pour them out to us abundantly. He often tells us from the bottom of his heart: “Come to me whenever you want; ask whatever you want; if you find that it is buying my graces too much to ask for them, only wish them; wish for strong ones, and you will have strong ones; desire without number, and you will have without number.” What

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goodness of Jesus Christ to be willing, by his grace, to be our company in solitude, our light in our doubts, our consolation in our sorrows, our support in all our difficulties! If we say we are weak, Jesus Christ is almighty, and through him we become almighty; and if the things he expects of us surpass our strength, they do not surpass those of a God. He will do in us what he wishes us to do for him, provided we put no obstacle to his plans. So let's go to him and say:

“Lord, allow me to present myself, through her and with her, before your adorable Majesty, united to the Blessed Virgin and to her holy dispositions, to consecrate myself anew to your service, by the three vows which I am about to renew. My God, why have I not acquired more holiness since my first profession, so that the present I am making to you today may be more agreeable to you; at least I do it to you with more knowledge! I wish to do it to you with more love, and I do it to you with everything

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My heart. I cannot repeat it too often, it is with all my heart; it is not here a pure ceremony, it is a devotion of the heart, sincere and effective, of which you will see the fruits; an eternal devotion, because I confirm it forever. And you, my God, do what you promised me, as I do what you ask of me: give yourself to me, as I give myself to you. So be it.”

8. For the day of the Renewal of her Vows.

We must, from the day before, think very particularly of disposing ourselves to do this action with as much love and fervor as if we were making profession again, and try to excite in our hearts very great desires to achieve perfection. that God asks of us, and to which we are obliged by our vows.

God wants us to be perfect Religious, and to live as true spouses of Jesus Christ. How many graces and inspirations has he given us to

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that! From how many obstacles has he saved us by making us enter into the Holy Religion! What could he do for us that he hasn't done! However, we have always turned a deaf ear and so far resisted so many benefits. Let us go a little inside ourselves, see what prevents us from truly working towards the perfection to which we are called by our state; let us examine the faults that we may have made against our vows and against our holy observances, in order to take effective means of renewing ourselves and beginning a life which will make us worthy spouses of Jesus Christ, in a word, true Religious.

11. ON THE MANNER OF ACCOUNTING FOR ITS INTERIOR.

Our Mother Saint Thérèse says, in the Constitutions, that Novices must give an account to their Mistress of their prayer; how they behave at the Mystery they

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must meditate, and what benefit they derive from it. But she wants it to come from the will of those who have to give it back, knowing the great spiritual benefit they will receive from it, rather than being forced to do so; and although she leaves great freedom on this, she nevertheless shows that there is much humility, mortification and advantage to be gained from it.

It is true that Novices, although advanced in age, must always regard themselves as children of one year, since they are in the first year of their spiritual birth, and they would easily go astray if they wanted to behave by themselves. They will therefore do well to have recourse to their Mistress, in order to receive from her consolation in their sadness, clarification in their doubts, courage in their sorrows, and assistance in their struggles and temptations. They must have a filial love for him, and open their hearts to him with simplicity and trust. But, as there may be some who would like to do it well, and who are worried, not knowing how to go about it, we believed

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to put here a little method, without however claiming to oblige them to anything, nor to captivate them: because the best way will be to always go there with a lot of simplicity, according to the knowledge that God gives to each one, without desiring more light than it pleases him to give us, after having nevertheless asked the assistance of his grace for this action, as for all the others.

We can therefore do it in this way or otherwise, according to our disposition:

“I find it easy enough to do my Spiritual Exercises; Our Lord gives me the grace to take care of him almost always, both in my prayer and in everything else. I don't have many distractions there; this occupation is in such a way; the one I have at prayer is of this kind.

I did it today on a subject; I gave it such consideration; I drew from it such affections and resolutions; they are usually the ones I always have, and to which all the light and all the good feelings that I have lead me.

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I have often made mistakes on such occasions, or on such things; I have had such satisfaction, or I have had none. I have endeavored to practice virtue on such occasions, and by such means.”

And so, to say simply and humbly the good and the bad that we have done.

If one is in a state of pain and inner distraction exerted by evil temptations and suggestions, one must say so with the same sincerity.

For example:

“I find myself in continual aridity and dryness in my Spiritual Exercises and in everything else. I cannot have any taste or sweetness in the thought of the truths of the Faith. However, I try to apply myself to it in prayer and elsewhere, in this way.

I am wrought with such sorrows and agitations; I behave like this; I have done such acts of virtue, and such faults in the Exercises that I have practiced.

I failed to follow the movement of the

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grace that led me to do such practices of virtue, and to conquer myself on such occasions.”

We must also be open about the use we have made of receiving the Holy Sacraments, both about the preparation we have made to receive them, and about the benefit we have derived from it.

If one has received more particular lights and advice from God; how long the mind has been filled with it; what effects they produced there.

If one recognizes in oneself an increase in the love of God, and an intimate and strong bond with Our Lord Jesus Christ.

If one feels particularly applied to someone of his Mysteries, and what one does to honor him.

What special devotion we have; if one advances in the release of creatures, and of death to oneself until not taking care of what does not concern us.

And finally how one works at true and solid virtues, or if one recognizes there waste, or amendment: because we must

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to account both for the improvement and progress and for our loss in the exercises of prayer, of the virtues and of the spiritual life, not only to console us, but also to strengthen and humble us.

But all this must be done with great humility, and care must be taken not to give rise to vain complacency.

As for the pain which may sometimes come over what one has said, whether in the fear one has of having drawn the will of one's Prioress or Mistress to one's own, or from some other place, provided that you have said nothing to this purpose, and that you have simply gone there, you need not worry: for the devil often uses this to disturb and occupy a spirit. So remain at rest, without reflecting on it, go to God, and be content with his will; whether the thing happens one way or it happens another, remain indifferent.

If one has any bodily infirmity or any particular need, one must also say so, as it is marked in the Constitution:

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That the Novices will tell their Mistress the need they have, either for food or for clothing, recommending themselves first to Our Lord, lest nature ask more than she needs.

12. FOR THE DAY OF TAKING THE HABIT, PROFESSION AND TAKING THE SAIL.

1. Preliminary instruction.

We can say that religious profession is a second baptism, because of the special graces that God sheds abundantly on the one who devotes herself to it, and who puts herself in a position, by this commitment, to keep perfectly the promises she has made. at the first baptism, to renounce Satan, his pomps and his works; she must therefore, while stripping herself of the clothes of the age, pray Our Lord Jesus Christ, for whose love she leaves them, to strip her of the old man, and to clothe her with himself.

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On entering to take the habit, she is presented with a crucifix to kiss, to teach her that she is becoming the wife of a crucified Jesus, and that she must, in imitation of him, carry the cross every day of her life. life: this divine Savior not wanting a disciple who was not burdened with this burden. She will therefore beg him to impress it on her heart.

The hair that is cut makes her understand that she must leave all the affections of the world, and detest the time she has wasted, and the care she has taken to please worldly people, by hair adjustment.

The dress of a brown color represents penance and mortification; and as the garment covers the whole body, the mortification must also extend to all the senses, to follow the advice of Saint Paul, who teaches that Christians must always surround their bodies with the mortification of Jesus Christ.

The sash represents to us that we must always be united and attached to Jesus Christ, and remember what he says to saint

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Pierre: “When you were young, you girded yourself, and you went where you wanted; but when you are old, another will gird you, and make you go where you do not want. This teaches us that we must allow ourselves to be led in all things by the orders of obedience, and have perfect freedom from our own will.

The Scapular represents to us the yoke of the Lord; the Priest, giving it to us, says to us: Take the yoke of Jesus Christ; he is very suave, and his load light. Which teaches us that we must bear the yoke of Religion with joy, and always be well subject to all religious observances.

We must also regard the Scapular as a present that the Blessed Virgin gave us in the person of Saint Simon Stock, having brought it to her from heaven, when he was living on earth, as a sign of salvation, and a pledge of his love for all our Order, adopting us for his children.

The white coat should remind us that those who follow the spotless Lamb

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walk with him in white garments. And this white garment must continually warn us of the purity that our soul must have.

The white veil, which is revealed to us from the habit, reminds us that we must renounce all the vain contentments of the world to follow Jesus Christ, poor, humble and suffering.

And the black veil, which we give after profession, marks us that we are the spouses of Jesus Christ who died on the cross for our love, and that we must die to the world and to ourselves, to live only farewell.

2. Direction for the day of taking the Habit.

“My Lord and my God, I thank you, with all the expanse of my soul, for enabling me to fulfill the promises made for me in Holy Baptism, to renounce Satan, to his pomps and works; I do this with all my heart, and thank you for what

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you call me to such a holy state, as is that of religion, where you give so many means to serve you; I recognize myself unworthy of this favour; but, my divine Saviour, since, by an effect of your goodness, you are willing to receive me among your wives, I desire to consecrate myself to it today with all my heart, for your love; receive then, my God, the offering that I make to you of myself, and the very sincere desire that I have to perform this action with the love and the perfection that are possible to me; strip me of the old man, and clothe me with you alone; give yourselves all to me, as I give myself all to you, and fill me with all the virtues which are necessary for me in the holy state which I embrace today; do me the grace to be so faithful to it, that I never give you reason to withdraw from me. Holy Virgin, who are the Mother of this Order, receive me as one of your daughters, and assist me in all my needs, always making me favorable to your dear Son. Great Saint Joseph, and Saint Elijah, who are the patrons of this Order,

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take me under your protection; and you, great Saint Thérèse, my dear Mother, consider me as one of your daughters, and grant me the grace to fulfill all my duties well.”

3. Direction for the day of Profession.

“My God, receive the public protest that I want to make today, to become your humble servant and your slave, by the three vows of chastity, poverty and obedience, which I desire to make today for your pure love. I give myself and consecrate everything to you, O my divine Saviour; annihilate and destroy everything in me that is contrary to these three vows, and give me the grace to observe them in all the perfection that you ask of me. Blessed Virgin, all the Angels and all the Men and Women Saints of this Order, assist me in this action, and make it agreeable to Our Lord, begging him to imprint in me the image of his poverty, of his chastity and his obedience, so that I

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may serve him with fidelity all the rest of my life, keeping inviolably the promises that I make to him today.

4. Direction for the day of taking the Veil.

“My Lord and my God, the black veil that I must receive today signifies to me the mortification of spirit in which I must live continually, as being the spouse of a God who died on the cross for my love; give me, Lord, the qualities of a true wife, and attach me strongly to you, that nothing can separate me from them; adorn my soul with the virtues you practiced while on earth, giving me humility, meekness, poverty and obedience, in short, all that will make me pleasing in your eyes and conformable to your holy humanity. Most Holy Virgin, obtain for me all these graces from your divine Son, I implore you.”

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13. DIRECTION FOR THE SMALL OFFICES APPOINTED WEEKLY AT THE TABLE.

1. For the one in charge of the Bell.

The sound of the bell should be taken as a mysterious sign, which invites the functions of the Christian religion; as the voice of God, calling to works of his service; like the trumpet from heaven, which summons peoples to come and hear the word of God: it is a living word, which announces the wishes and orders of obedience. We must listen to it like a voice that comes from heaven. to awaken and urge us to meet the Bridegroom who calls us to sing his praises with love and fervor, remembering what the Apostle says: that, when we speak the language of the Angels, if we does not have charity, one resembles a ringing bell, which only beats the air, and whose sound leaves nothing behind.

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“Lord, my God, I gladly accept the obedience imposed on me this week to ring the bell to invite everyone to come and pray to you; fill my soul with your charity, which leads me with ardor to praise you, and make me be as obedient to the movements of your grace as the bell will be to that of my arms. Holy Virgin, obtain this favor for me, I beg you.”

2. For the one who is weekly.

"My Lord and my God, who destines me this week for an angelic function, having chosen me for the weekly Office, give me the grace to fulfill it with all the love, fervor and attention you desire from me. Let your spirit govern my senses, to worthily fulfill such a glorious office, for your greater glory and for my salvation. Holy Virgin, obtain for me all the graces that are necessary for me to say the Divine Office well; and you, blessed spirits,

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share with me your ardor and your love, I beg you.”

This Direction can also be used when one is a cantor or versecular, changing the word ofweekly in that of cantor or versicular.

3. For the one who is the Refectory Reader.

“My Lord and my God, the Office of Reader, which I have this week, gives me place to distribute spiritual food to the soul, while the body takes its corporeal repair; grant me the grace, Lord, to acquit me well of this job, for your greater glory and your love, and make all those who hear me, as well as me, benefit from the holy instructions that you give us through the spiritual readings, so that we may please you. We ask you for this grace through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin.”

4. For the one in charge of holy water fonts.

« Lord, I must, this week, take care

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to keep clean the vessels where the holy water is put; this job reminds me of the purity of soul and body that I must have to receive your sacred body and your precious blood, which surpasses all blessing. I beg you to cleanse my soul of all its stains, so that I may be more worthy of receiving such a precious gift. Holy Virgin, it is through you that I hope for this grace.”

5. For the one in charge of the Candlesticks.

“My Lord Jesus Christ, I gladly accept the care that obedience gives me this week, from the lights of the Choir; I offer you all the work I will do there, and beg you, you who are the light of the world, to grant me the grace to follow you so that I never walk in darkness; purify my interior so well, that my works carry the light of good example. Holy Virgin, obtain this grace for me, I implore you.”

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6. For the one who is in charge of the service of the Table.

“My Lord Jesus Christ, who said that you did not come into the world to be served, but on the contrary to serve, cause, my God, that, following your example, I fulfill with love and charity the office of Waitress, which obedience gives me this week; I offer you all that I will do there, desiring that all my actions will be agreeable to you; I ask you for this grace through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin.”

7. For those in charge of the humble Office.

"My divine Saviour, who is the Master of humility, and who has given us the example of it on so many occasions, grant me the grace to advance in this virtue, performing perfectly the office that obedience gives me this week. I offer you everything I will do there, desiring to please you in all my actions, doing them for

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your love. Blessed Virgin, Queen of heaven and earth, and the most humble of all creatures, obtain this virtue for me, I beg of you.”

14. VARIOUS PRAYERS.

1. Prayer to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

O sacred Heart of my Jesus, I adore you with all the powers of my soul; I consecrate them to you forever, with all my thoughts, my words and my works. Why, O divine Heart, can I render to you as much adoration, love and glory as you render to your Eternal Father! Be the repairer of my faults, the protector of my life and my asylum at the hour of my death; I ask you the same grace for all the poor sinners, the afflicted hearts, the dying, and finally for all the men who are on the earth, so that the price of your precious blood is not lost for them. Also cause it to be applied for the relief of souls

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of Purgatory. This is what I dare to ask you, O adorable Heart, with all my breaths until the last of my life. So be it.

2. Prayer to the Blessed Virgin.

O Sacred Heart of the Mother of my God, serve me as a refuge; I revere you and salute you, O most ardent Heart, as the sanctuary of the Holy Trinity; kindle my heart with the ardent love with which yours was kindled. I place all my trust in you as the Mother of mercy and the refuge of sinners; it is you who must be singularly loved; all your privileges delight my heart and my spirit, being attracted by the smell of your perfumes, by the beauty and holiness of your interior and by the fullness of the graces with which God has showered you; I come to you, all sinner and miserable that I am, to beg you to obtain for me, from your dear Son, contrition and the forgiveness of my sins, the grace to practice all the virtues of which your Sacred Heart is the throne and the sanctuary, and particularly the sweetness, the purity, the

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recollection and the humility that burst out in your morals; but above all I conjure you, from the most intimate of my heart, to be my good Mother and to place me, however unworthy I may be, among those whom you regard as your servants and whom you cherish as your children. Hear, I beg you, the sighs of a heart that desires to love and serve Jesus Christ your Son: do not reject my prayer and that which I make to you for all sinners and for the relief of the souls in purgatory. O Mother of goodness, let your very great mercy come to the aid of my very great misery; I hope everything from you and throw myself into your arms; guide me and protect me always and at all times of my life, and especially at the hour of my death, and cause in everything and everywhere the will of God to be perfectly accomplished for me, during the time and eternity. So be it.

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LITANIES OF SAINT THERESE.

[the original is bilingual French/Latin]

Lord, have mercy on us.

Christ, have mercy on us.

Lord, have mercy on us.

Christ, hear us.

Christ, hear us.

Heavenly Father, who art God, have mercy on us.

Son, Redeemer of the world, who art God, have mercy on us.

Holy Spirit, who art God, have mercy on us.

Holy Trinity, who are one God, have mercy on us.

Holy Mary, pray for us.

Holy Mother of God, pray for us.

Saint Therese, pray for us.

Daughter of the Eternal Father

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adopted in Heaven, pray for us.

Spouse of the Incarnate Word, who received a nail from the Passion as a dowry, pray for us.

Sacred dwelling of the Holy Spirit, pray for us.

Trinity Delights, pray for us.

Very pure sanctuary of the Most Blessed Sacrament, pray for us.

Image of Jesus Christ, pray for us.

Soul very devoted to the cult of the Virgin Mary, pray for us.

Soul very zealous for the honor of Saint Joseph, pray for us.

You who are dead to yourself and to the world, pray for us.

Attached with Jesus Christ on his cross, pray for us.

Fruitful and admirable offspring of our holy father

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Elijah, pray for us.

Heiress of the double spirit of our holy Father Elisha, pray for us.

Reformer of the Order of Carmel, pray for us.

Virgin whom God himself instructed, pray for us.

Seraphic Virgin, pray for us.

Admirable Virgin, pray for us.

Most ardent furnace of divine charity, pray for us.

Very strong column of Christian faith, pray for us.

You who have been enriched with the treasures of divine wisdom, pray for us.

You who were inflamed with a very ardent zeal for the salvation of souls, pray for us.

You who were attached by a particular vow to the greatest perfection of God, pray for us.

You who were very abundantly filled

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heavenly gifts, pray for us.

The glory of Mount Carmel, pray for us.

The perfume of continual prayer, pray for us.

The most penetrating contemplator, pray for us.

The eagle gazing at the sun of justice, pray for us.

Able to bear the impressions of Divinity, pray for us.

Golden vine, pray for us.

Industrious bee of God, pray for us.

Perpetual victim of obedience, pray for us.

Read angelic chastity, pray for us.

Splendor of angelic poverty, pray for us.

Radiance of monastic discipline, pray for us.

Martyrdom of death, pray for us.

Ardent lover of the Cross of Jesus Christ, pray for us.

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You who wish to suffer or die, pray for us.

Closed garden of loneliness, pray for us.

Friend of silence, pray for us.

Abyss of humility, pray for us.

Ocean of abnegation, pray for us.

Miracle of penance, pray for us.

Prodigy of mortification, pray for us.

Source of purity, pray for us.

Simple and gentle dove, pray for us.

Sea of ​​patience, pray for us.

Model of all the virtues, pray for us.

Receptacle of the wonders of God, pray for us.

Pierced with the dart of seraphic love, pray for us.

Glorious tamer of the power of darkness, pray for us.

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Dead in love of God, pray for us.

Ruler of Carmel perfection, pray for us.

You who have deserved a triple halo, pray for us.

Salutary refuge of the Carmelites, pray for us.

It is to you, our very dear Mother, that we have recourse, pray for us.

Deign to help, by your prayers, the Holy Church and her Ministers. We beg you, listen to us.

Deign to protect and preserve this holy Religion of which you are the Mother. We beg you, listen to us.

Deign to make us persevere in our pious commitment. We beg you, listen to us.

Deign to preserve us from the traps and illusions of the flesh, the world and the devil. We beg you, listen to us.

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Deign to obtain for us the true spirit of the Holy Religion of Carmel. We beg you, listen to us.

Deign to obtain for us a perfect humility, and the entire renunciation of our wills. We beg you, listen to us.

Deign to obtain for us a perpetual mortification, and a continual meditation on the divine law. We beg you, listen to us.

Deign to lead us to the height of evangelical perfection. We beg you, listen to us.

Deign to obtain the gifts of the Holy Spirit for our prelates and for us. We beg you, listen to us.

Deign to unite with the perpetual bond of fraternal charity all the students of our Institute and all the faithful. We beg you, listen to us.

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Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, forgive us, Lord.

Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, hear us, Lord.

Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us, [Lord.]

PRAYER.

Hear us, Lord who are our salvation, and grant that, as the feast of Blessed Saint Teresa, your Virgin and our Mother, fill us with joy, so her heavenly doctrine may nourish our souls, and her tender and affectionate the subject of our instruction; we ask you this through our Lord Jesus Christ.

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LITANIES OF SAINT JOHN OF THE CROSS.

Lord, have mercy on us.

Jesus Christ, have mercy on us.

Lord, have mercy on us.

Jesus Christ, hear us.

Jesus Christ, hear us.

God the Father, from the heavens where you are, have mercy on us.

God the Redeemer Son of the world, have mercy on us.

God the Holy Spirit, have mercy on us.

One God in three persons, have compassion on us.

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Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us.

Saint John of the Cross our Father, pray.

Beloved Son of the Blessed Virgin Mary Our Lady of Mount Carmel, pray.

Flower of Carmel, with a very pleasant smell, pray.

Admirable heir to the zeal of Saint Elijah, pray.

Very solid foundation for the reform of Carmel, pray.

Beloved son and father of our holy Mother Thérèse, pray.

Very religious observer of the reform of Carmel, pray.

Vase of innocence, pray.

Very vigilant in the practice of all the virtues, pray.

Very ardent in charity, pray.

Much lowered in humility, pray.

Very eminent in obedience, pray

Sun shining in purity and charity, pray

Invincible in patience, pray.

Endowed with the simplicity and gentleness of the dove, pray.

Lover of poverty, pray.

Model of holiness, pray.

Faithful observer of justice, pray.

Very dear friend of Jesus crucified, pray.

Prodigy of penance, pray for us.

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Insatiable lover of mortification, pray.

Burning and shining torch, pray.

Source of a heavenly doctrine, pray.

Mystical doctor, pray.

Master of the inner life, pray.

Sublime in prayer, pray.

Column of faith, pray.

Ardent zealot of the evangelical doctrine.

Trumpet sound of the word of God, pray.

Most fervent preacher of the truth, pray.

Faithful conductor of souls, pray.

Light of those who wander, pray.

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Joy of those who are in sorrow, pray.

Consolation of the afflicted, pray for us.

Instrument of so many miracles, pray.

Terror of the powers of hell, pray.

Filled with the spirit of the prophets, pray.

Burning with the desire for martyrdom, pray.

Exact guardian of the field of the Lord, pray.

The adornment and glory of Carmel, pray.

Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, forgive us, Lord.

Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, hear us, Lord.

Lamb of God, who

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wash away the sins of the world, have mercy on us Lord.

ANTENNA.

I am attached with Jesus Christ to the Cross, in which I live, so that Jesus Christ may live in me, for whose love the world is crucified to me, and I to the world. I will put my glory in the tribulation, because by means of it I will possess all true goods.

v. Pray for us, our glorious Father John of the Cross.

r. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Jesus Christ.

PRAY.

My God, who made Saint John of the Cross, your confessor, an excellent lover of

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the perfect abnegation of oneself and of the Cross, grant us the grace that, by a continual imitation of his crucified life, we may attain eternal glory. Through Jesus Christ Our Lord. So be it.

4. Prayer to the Heart of Saint Thérèse.

I salute you, very ardent heart of my Seraphic Mother, who deserved to be all ablaze in the love of our common Spouse, and sorry on his part for this great wound by the hand of a Seraphim, as an assured mark and visible of his reciprocal love towards you. Light in my heart and in all those of my sisters your daughters this same flame, and unite them all in your holy heart, so that, like that of Jesus Christ and yours, there is made one, all ours can be joined there to be consumed and reduced in the same unit

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of love, and enjoy one day, through your merits, the glory of the sacred embraces with which your celestial Spouse keeps you united to him. So be it.

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SPIRITUAL ADVICE OF OUR MOTHER SAINT THERESE

AND MANY OTHER SAINTS

OF THE ORDER OF OUR LADY OF MOUNT CARMEL.

[SPIRITUAL ADVICE OF OUR MOTHER SAINT THERESE]

1. Uncultivated land will bear thistles and thorns, though it be good and fertile; so it is with the understanding of man.

2. We must speak with reverence of all spiritual persons, such as Religious, Priests and Hermits.

3. Being in the company of many, speak little.

4. Be modest in everything you do or say.

5. One should not argue or argue much, especially in things of little importance.

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6. Everyone should be spoken to with moderate joy.

7. Never make fun of anything.

8. One must never reprove anyone without discretion and humility, and without having one's own confusion.

9. One must always accommodate oneself to the complexion of the one with whom one deals or communicates: with the joyful, be cheerful; with the sad, to be sad; and finally to become everything to everyone, in order to gain them all.

10. One should never speak without first planning it well, and commend oneself a great deal to Our Lord, so as not to say anything that is disagreeable to him.

11. Never apologize, except in a very likely thing.

12. One must never say of oneself things worthy of praise, such as of one's knowledge, of one's virtues and of one's condition, if one does not hope that it will result in profit; and then again it must be with humility and consideration that these are gifts that come from the hand of God.

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13. One should never exaggerate things too much, but say one's opinion and opinion in moderation.

14. In your talks, always mix up some spiritual things, and with that much idle talk and murmuring will be avoided.

15. Never assure anything that you don't know first.

16. Never meddle in giving your opinion on anything unless asked, or charity requires it.

17. When someone speaks of spiritual things, listen to him with humility, and as a disciple, and take for yourself whatever good he says.

18. Discover all your temptations, imperfections and repugnances to your superior and confessor, so that he may give you advice and remedy to overcome and overcome them.

19. One must not be out of his cell nor leave it without reasonable cause; and on leaving, you must ask God for help and help, so as not to offend him.

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20. One should neither eat nor drink, except at ordinary and accustomed hours; and after the meal, we must give thanks to God.

21. One must do all things as if God really looked at them, as indeed he looks at them, and by this way a soul benefits very much.

22. Never listen to those who say bad things about someone, and never say bad things about them, except about yourself. And when you take pleasure in doing so, you will come a long way.

23. Do no action without bringing it back to God by offering it to him, and without asking him to make it succeed to his honor and glory.

24. When you are in joy, do not let yourself be carried away with immoderate laughter; but let your joy be humble, sweet, modest and uplifting.

25. Always consider yourself to be the servant of all others; and look in each of them at Our Lord Jesus-

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Christ; and by this means you will have no difficulty in respecting them.

26. Always be as willing to practice obedience as if Jesus Christ himself ordered it to you through the mouth of your Superior.

27. In every action and at every hour examine your conscience; and after having noticed your faults, try to correct them, with the assistance of God. By walking this path, you will arrive at religious perfection.

28. Do not think of the faults of others, but of virtues only, and of your own faults.

29. Always have strong desires to suffer for Our Lord Jesus Christ in everything and on every occasion.

30. Every day make fifty oblations and offerings of yourself to God, and this with great fervor and desire to possess him.

31. Have before your eyes and present throughout the day what you meditated on in the morning,

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and employ in it great care and diligence, as much as there is great profit.

32. Keep well the feelings that God will communicate to you, and carry out the desires that he will give you in prayer.

33. Always flee from singularity as much as possible, because it is a great evil for a Community.

34. Read often the Rule and Constitutions of your Religion, and keep them truly.

35. In all created things, look to the providence and wisdom of God, and praise him in all things.

36. Withdraw your heart and strip it of all things; seek only God and you will find him.

37. Never show devotion without without having it within: although nevertheless having it it would be better to hide and cover it well.

38. Never show interior devotion without great necessity: My secret is mine, said Saint Francis and Saint Bernard.

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39. Do not complain about the meat, whether it is well or badly prepared, reminding you of the gall and vinegar of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

40. At the table, do not speak to anyone and do not raise your sight to look at anyone.

41. Consider the table of heaven and the heavenly food, which is God, and the guests, who are the Angels: raise your eyes to this heavenly table, desiring to see you there.

42. In the presence of your Superior, in whose person you must consider Our Lord Jesus Christ, never say more than what is necessary, and that with great reverence.

43. Never do anything you can't do in front of everyone.

44. Never compare people, because comparisons are odious.

45. When someone reproves you, accept it with interior and exterior humility, and pray to God for him who reproves you.

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46. ​​When a superior commands you something, do not say that another commands the opposite, but believe that both have holy intentions, and obey what is commanded to you.

47. Don't be curious to talk or inquire about things that don't concern you.

48. Always have your past life present, to mourn it, as well as your present lukewarmness, and what you lack to go to heaven, in order to live in fear; which is the cause of great good.

49. Always do what those of the house tell you, provided it is not against obedience, and answer them with humility and gentleness.

50. Do not ask for anything special for food or clothing, except out of great necessity.

51. Never stop humbling and mortifying yourselves in all things, even to death.

52. Get into the habit of always performing several acts of love for God, especially as they inflame and soften the soul.

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53. Do frequent acts of all the other virtues also.

54. Offer all things to the Eternal Father, jointly with the merit of his Son Jesus Christ.

55. Be gentle with all others and strict with yourself.

56. On the days of the Feasts of the Saints, think of their virtues, and pray to God that he gives them to you.

57. Be very careful to examine your conscience every evening.

58. On the day when you must take communion, let your prayer be to see and consider that being so miserable you must receive God, and let your evening prayer be to think that you have received him.

59. Being Superior, never reprove anyone with anger, but when it has passed; and so the reproof you will bring will benefit.

60. Strive to acquire perfection and devotion, and to do all things with them.

61. Be as careful about exercising

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much in the fear of God; it is what attracts the soul to compunction and humility.

62. We must well consider how often people change their moods, and how uncertain is the confidence placed in them; and at the same time one must attach oneself strongly to God, who does not change.

63. Take care to transact often the affairs of your soul with a Confessor who is spiritual and learned, and be obedient to him in all things.

64. Each time you receive communion, ask the Lord for some gift, through that great love which led him to give himself to you.

65. Although you have several saints as advocates and patrons, nevertheless always have a very special devotion to Saint Joseph, who obtains many graces from the Lord.

66. When you are in sadness, trouble and anxiety, do not abandon prayer and the holy works of penance that you are accustomed to doing, because the

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demon tries to worry and trouble you, so that you leave them: but rather do more than you did, and you will see that Our Lord will favor you immediately.

67. Do not communicate your temptations with the less perfect of your house, for you would bring harm to yourself and to others, but communicate them to the most perfect.

68. Remember that you have only one soul, that you will only die once, that you have only one life which is short, and that there is only one glory that is eternal; and that thought will detach you from many created things.

69. Let your desire be to see God, your fear of losing him, your pain at not possessing him yet, your joy at what can lead you to him, and you will live in great rest.

PRAISE BE OUR LORD JESUS ​​CHRIST.

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SPIRITUAL ADVICE OF SAINT JOHN OF THE CROSS.

1. Strive always to keep in your hearts a sincere desire and an ardent affection to imitate Jesus Christ, and behave in all your actions exactly as he would behave himself.

2. Give yourself rather to difficult and humble things, than to those which are convenient and lofty; generously embrace all kinds of pains and labors for the love of Jesus Christ, and believe that by loving him thus, one receives ineffable consolations.

3. Since Our Lord, during his life, took all his pleasure in doing the will of his Father, renounce all that is capable of flattering the senses; and by this means you will in a short time make considerable progress in virtue.

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4. Virtue and strength of soul are increased and perfected in labors: this is why you should not fear them, but rather suffer them generously, since they will raise you above the world, and will bring you nearer to His Divine Majesty.

5. God makes more of the inclination that we have to suffer for his love disgraces, illnesses, uprisings and even droughts in prayer, than of all the consolations and all the caresses and favors with which he could gratify us.

6. If you do not desire the cross of Jesus Christ, you do not desire his glory; if you want to possess it, do not look for it outside the cross, for one enjoys it only by leaving oneself.

7. Do not wish anything else as a reward for your labors and your good works, but new contempt and new sufferings, and persevere constantly in a life of the cross and interior and exterior mortification.

8. Accustom yourself to suffer, to act and to

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be silent, if you want to live in peace and increase the strength of your soul, to practice the great virtues.

9. Convince yourself that you entered religion only to be polished and perfected each day by the hands of your brothers: consider them as so many charitable officers and very skilful ministers, sent from God to sanctify you, in testing and exercising you in different ways.

10. Your soul is much uglier and more impure to draw near to God, having the least willful affection for earthly things, than if it were afflicted with many dishonest temptations, and with all imaginable darkness, provided that you do not give your consent.

11. If you want to love something with God, surely you do not value it very much, since you put it in parallel with something which is so disproportionate to it, binding you in affection with the creature, which is only filth and ugliness in comparison with its purity and its infinite beauty.

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12. Your desires are like worried little children who are very difficult to please, who continually ask their mother sometimes for one thing, sometimes for another, without ever being satisfied: the more you give them, the more importunate they will be to ask you.

13. What does it matter if a bird is stopped by a small net or by a slightly larger rope, as long as it cannot fly? So it is with your soul, if it is attached with affection to any created thing, however small it may be: for with all the other virtues it will never attain the freedom of divine union, and perhaps To achieve this, all that remains is to break this little net that keeps her attached.

14. There is no peccant and malignant temper which so hinders a patient from acting freely and which depraves his taste more than the disordered love of creatures, which makes the soul restless and cowardly in the practice of virtue ; and be persuaded that the ordinary source of your sorrow and your cowardice in the service of God is nothing but the disorder of your affections.

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15. If you do not mortify your desires, they will arrest your soul and prevent it from reaching perfection, just like the fish called remora, by attaching itself to a ship, stops it and prevents it from continuing on its way; or else, like the shoots of trees which draw their juice and weaken its vigor, they will diminish the strength of your soul and prevent it from growing; and even quite often these disastrous productions will kill the one who gives them life, as vipers kill their mother when they come out of her womb.

16. Trust not in your fine spirit, nor in the favors which God has already given you: for, if you still have any affection for creatures and neglect to mortify yourselves, it is powerful enough to bring you down little by little. into greater evils, as we see in Solomon, who fell imperceptibly into such enormous crimes only for neglecting to mortify the disorderly movements and sensual inclinations of his heart.

17. If you impose on yourself rigorous penances and painful exercises, thinking

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that this is the only way to become perfect, you will soon recognize that you have made a mistake. But if you employ half your work in seriously and entirely denying yourself, you will profit more in a month by this means than you would in several years by all the rigors of the most austere penance which would not be joined to this inner renunciation.

18. If you satisfy your desires in something against the will of God, you commit yourself to two penalties: the first to deprive yourself of this satisfaction, and the second to wash and purify you of the defilement which this attachment has left.

19. A habitual imperfection, however small, brings more damage to your soul than many others into which you fall back only through fragility, surprise or passion.

20. Take special care to mortify the point of honor, even in the smallest things, and never think that you have been wronged, that you are right, that you are older, that you have made more of

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services, that you have worked more and that you are more capable: for the most subtle poison does not cause death more quickly, that these sorts of thoughts infallibly destroy perfection and cause the life of the spirit to be irremediably lost.

21. Why do you delay leaving the creature, who is nothing, to unite yourselves out of love to your God, who is All? Don't you see that Eternity draws near, and that the precious time that God gives you to acquire perfection is slipping away imperceptibly? So determine today to leave this nothingness and this nothingness of the creature that is stopping you, to unite yourselves with the All, which is God.

22. Do not be saddened by the bad successes of the affairs of the world, since you do not know the advantages that God wishes to draw from them for the utility of the just and the eternal joy of his elect.

23. You will easily overcome everything that can prevent you from living in intimate union with God, if you are assiduous in prayer: for what can he who

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seeks God with all his heart, and unites himself in love with the Almighty?

24. Since your sadness must increase by the accomplishment of your will, beware of satisfying it, although you must remain in affliction and sorrow: for, by thinking of relieving yourself, your sorrows will increase and become more sensitive to you.

25. If you submit (although with difficulty and aridity) to what is just and reasonable, you will be much more pleasing to God than if, lacking these disgusts and dryness, you did this action with great ease and sweetness. of mind.

26. God loves in you the least act of obedience and submission more than all the services which you propose to render to him by your own choice and your own inclination.

27. Never look at your Superior, whoever he may be, in any other way than if you looked at God himself: for if you examine his actions, his temper and his talents to regulate your conduct on this view, then your obedience, which was to be all divine and all

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holy, will be no more than a political, philosophical and entirely human obedience.

28. If you live according to your own judgment and without a Spiritual Director, you will be like a separated coal, which soon loses its heat instead of increasing it, or else you will resemble a tree exposed on the roads, which, although that loaded with fruit cannot nevertheless preserve them in their perfection, being cut down by passers-by before their maturity.

29. Spare not your life, your honor, nor your health, when it is a question of maintaining and by words and works the narrow observance and the primitive spirit of your Religion; but consider yourself happy to suffer something in order to preserve the one you must have only at heart.

30. If anyone wants to persuade you of a broad and convenient doctrine, when he would confirm it even by miracles, do not believe him; but embrace austere penance, listen and believe those who teach you release from all things, and always rule your life on the maxims of a doctrine

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evangelical, and on a truly Christian morality.

31. The more delicate a flower, the sooner it withers: so do not choose yourselves a gentle and easy way, lest you never be firm and steadfast in virtue.

32. Know that perfection does not consist in the virtues that the soul recognizes in itself, but in those that only God knows there; and as it is a hidden and very secret thing, you have more reason to fear than to presume, in the uncertainty in which you are, whether your virtue is approved of God.

33. Do not consider the faults of your neighbor; keep silence exactly, and communicate much with God by prayer: for, by practicing these three things faithfully, you will soon tear from your soul the imperfections which are most rooted there, and you will enrich it with all the virtues.

34. God loves nothing so much in your soul as humility and self-contempt: all other outward gifts

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that he has made for you do not touch him like that.

35. Look upon all men as strangers; do not love one more than the other, otherwise you will often be deceived: for this one is more worthy of being loved, whom God cherishes more, and we do not know who this favorite is.

36. Do not seek to make friends and protectors in religion, but remain poor, devoid and without support from creatures, contenting yourself solely in this world with Jesus and his cross.

37. If you put your all into nothingness, you will find satisfaction in all things for your heart and rest for your mind. O happy nothingness!

38. Believe me, have no curiosity for news, for you will find no contentment there, and your mind, charmed by these kinds of chimeras, will be weak and incapable of applying itself to holy and solid things.

39. Use the great desires that God gives you to suffer to bear peacefully

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and in silence the moods and the weaknesses of your neighbour, and the occasions for annoyance that he can give you: offer all this to God with a whole heart, and do not complain to anyone.

40. Never undertake anything (though otherwise very good and full of charity) beyond the statutes of your Religion, except by the command and conduct of obedience, which alone will give you merit. and produce peace and safety in your conscience. Know that the actions of a Religious are not his, but his Superior's: thus he commits larceny before God, if he withdraws them from obedience.

41. The Superior must govern his house according to the maxims of virtue, and take care to provide it with temporal things, rather by celestial desires and by a holy confidence in the paternal Providence of God, than by leaning on the industry of men and the useless cares of human prudence. And if he takes care that his soul and those of his Religious are united to God,

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let him assure himself that for the rest his Majesty will be his support and surety.

42. He alone can say that he has overcome all things when the taste of creatures will cause him no joy, and bitterness and disgust will give him no sorrow.

43. Provided that you desire nothing but God, you will not walk in darkness, although you seem to be entirely buried there.

44. Never give up the practice of good works, although you are caressed with no favor and sensible consolation.

45. You will please God more by an act of virtue done in charity, than by all the visions, ecstasies and revelations you may receive from Heaven. Therefore you must carefully arrange every happy opportunity that presents itself to exercise charity, and to do all kinds of good works, and thus to acquire the heroic virtues, which are so precious before God.

46. ​​God makes more state of the lesser degree of purity of heart than of all good

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works that you can do, even brilliantly, before the world.

47. If your soul remained in heaven without applying its will to love God, however happy it might be, it would not nevertheless be satisfied: thus, although God is always with you, if your heart is attached to some creature, you will not be happy; and if an act of virtue produces in the soul sweetness, peace, light, strength and consolation, in the same way the slightest attachment to the creature causes anxiety, sadness, weariness, impurity, weakness, darkness, and renders the soul incapable of receiving the spirit of God.

48. You will advance more in an hour with the gifts and graces of God, than you would do in the whole course of your life by your industry and your own strength. So have an empty heart without commitment, if you want to be able to receive the immense gifts and goods of God.

49. Take care to keep your soul in great calm and oblivion of all created things, and accustom yourself to nourishing it.

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with a simple and loving gaze towards God, without desiring to receive from him sensible tastes and favors, nor even any particular grace: and by this means he will communicate to you his spirit of wisdom and peace.

50. Remember that there are three infallible marks to know if you have a true interior recollection and a true love of God: the first, if temporal things do not please you; the second, if silence and solitude give you contentment, and you take care to practice what is most perfect; the third, if the meditation or the discourse that helped you to pray is currently preventing you. These three marks must be found together.

51. The more faith you have, the more you will be united with God and will be like him.

52. In all your needs, use hope in God rather than all human diligence, and believe that you will get as much as you hope for.

53. Know that love is not about feeling great things, but about giving up

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oneself, and to suffer generously for God.

54. If you want to have God in all things, you must have nothing in all things: for how can it be that the heart which belongs to one is entirely to another?

55. Have no esteem for all that is in the world, since what is most precious in this life is nothingness and pure vanity in relation to the friendship of God; but only cherish his grace.

56. Do not rejoice in the possession of perishable and temporal goods, since you do not know if they will make you enjoy eternal life.

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SPIRITUAL ADVICE OF SAINT ANDRÉ CORSINI, BISHOP.

1. All virtue consists in falling less often and in taking good care of our falls in order to draw from them a remedy against venom, by speaking, acting, looking and listening with more circumspection, and always holding the heart as suspended and elevated. towards God, so as not to allow anything to enter that does not come from him.

2. Study yourself incessantly to always seek and find God in the depths of your heart and soul.

3. Never have more than two eyes in all the conduct of your life: one for the glory of God, the other for the edification of your neighbour.

4. Waking up at night, getting up in the morning, undressing at night, going about business, studying, writing, conversing in

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company, launch towards heaven and even into the heart of God fervent desires of adoration, thanksgiving, submission, obedience, resignation and others that love will inspire in you.

5. One must have a singular affection for the exercises of abjection and humility: as

washing the dishes, sweeping the church or the dormitories; willingly to collect through the city, even in the houses of our closest relatives.

6. It is in the exercises of penance and austerity that one encounters the torrents of spiritual satisfactions which are only tasted and felt by those who experience them.

7. The rebellion of the body must be subdued by the austerities of vigils and fasts; and to these ends also sometimes wear the hair, often use discipline, fast on certain days of the week or of the month on bread and water, seek opportunities to obey even the least of the house.

8. The pains and labors we suffer on earth are considered very light when compared to the eternal weight of the earth.

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glory they are preparing for us in heaven.

9. To profit in the spiritual life, one must study oneself incessantly for the knowledge of oneself and seek to acquire a continual familiarity with God, by the exercise of prayer, the observation of oneself and the solid practice of acts of humility and charity.

10. Have no affection for anything except God, and let all the joy and desire of your soul be to find His divine Majesty in all things.

11. The less we can mingle among men and the embarrassments of the things of the earth, it is the safest and the best for us.

12. It is in vain to pretend to make progress in the spiritual life, if one does not cherish prayer; in proportion as one becomes fond of it, one sensibly feels the assistance of the spiritual and temporal graces and blessings of Our Lord.

13. One must devote oneself in such a way to the study of the sciences, that one does not come to extinguish in oneself the fervor of good and perfect devotion.

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MAXIMS AND SENTENCES OF SAINT ALBERT.

1. Let your first and greatest desire be to render faithfully to all that God wishes and requires of you in your condition, holding it constant that all your good and spiritual advancement in virtue depends entirely on this.

2. Remember often in your memory this word of the Son of God, that you must be in the world without being of the world, that is to say, you must pass among the things of the world without taking part in corruption. of the world, and without putting his heart or his affection into it.

3. Take careful heed that your heart is not occupied with vain and useless things, thoughts or desires of the world, and watch carefully over all the movements of your soul, lest disorder creep into it. not.

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4. Remember that the chief duties and true occupations of the male and female servants of Jesus and Mary are to work unceasingly to purify their hearts and root out from them all evil inclinations, thoughts, affections and disordered passions.

5. To succeed well in the service of God, one must love and tenderly cherish retreat, silence, devotion, recollection, purity of heart and prayer.

6. The virtues which should be more familiar and ordinary to us are charity, humility, simplicity, and a learned ignorance of things which are foreign to our state and condition.

7. If you are not a great saint, you must not blame God, but rather the infidelity of your heart which steals the glory due to His Sovereign Majesty, by arrogating it to himself and attributing it to himself. to oneself.

8. It is a thing worthy of astonishment to say that one can believe that God is God, and yet that with this belief one fulfills so badly the respect, the love and the service which one owes him. render.

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9. If there were someone who was happy enough to love and serve the Blessed Virgin, our good Mother, Lady and Mistress, as she deserves, no doubt that person would carry in his heart a great treasure. , thanks.

10. We must never stop our eyes on what we are doing, but focus on what we should or could do.

11. The four elements of which a good heart is composed are: purity, humility, devotion and faithfulness.

12. Whoever desires and claims to draw upon himself the benign influences of the goodness and great mercies of Our Lord must become a child of prayer and a friend of true, perfect and solid devotion.

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WORDS AND SENTENCES OF SAINT PETER THOMAS, PATRIARCH.

1. It is deceiving oneself and grossly deceiving oneself to imagine great difficulties in the ways of God and in the exercises of piety and devotion; one only has to love, and love God, who is infinitely lovable.

2. All that is asked of the fidelity of a soul amounts to three things: to prefer reason to sense, eternity to time, God to the creature.

3. One should never be happy and satisfied with the services one renders to God, nor believe or think in any way that one has done enough.

4. If we knew what God deserves from the creature, the honour, the homage and the services that are due to him, we would have no difficulty in being confounded by the little that we render to him.

5. One must carefully avoid idleness,

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sadness and discouragement which is a certain coldness or a certain laxity of the soul by which one is bored and disgusted with the things of God and with what concerns his divine service.

6. Any state, even the most humble, the most arid and the furthest from consolation, is always good and useful to the soul which lives by the will of God, and not by its own.

7. It is very easy to console oneself in sorrows, crosses and sufferings, if one convinces oneself that one never resembles Jesus Christ, our dear Master and Saviour, better than when one participates in those of his very bitter and painful Passion.

8. To succeed in the exercise of mental prayer, one must study oneself principally in mortification and Christian simplicity. For His Divine Majesty's most familiar conversation is with the simple.

9. Christians and Religious should have a fiery desire for the Cross, and look upon it as a fruit of life which so sustains, helps and strengthens those who embrace it,

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that they can very usefully and advantageously put and arrest in it all the hopes of their salvation and happiness.

10. In the time of temptation, we must humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God and carefully consider our own faults, weaknesses and nothingness.

11. Suffering is so excellent a thing, when it is taken up and borne faithfully, that when God meets a soul disposed to receive it, he would rather overthrow heaven and earth than give him the opportunity and he would not make her grieving and suffering, in order to make her holy and blessed.

12. One only relaxes in penance and mortifications because one ceases to look at Jesus Christ, in order to look at oneself with the weaknesses and infirmities with which one sees oneself filled; we must have recourse to this dear Jesus, since he is all our help and all our strength; and we must take care not to wish him to relieve us of our cross, but only to wish him to help us to bear it.

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13. Penance being the virtue of a soul consecrated to God, those who have the happiness of belonging to his divine Majesty in this beautiful capacity must apply their attention and their affection to becoming ingenious in order to find in all things some subject and opportunity to suffer.

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SENTENCES AND PRACTICES OF SAINT ANGEL, MARTYR.

1. His assiduity in the divine service was so ordinary, that besides his daily office, he recited on his knees the whole Psalter of David, and meditated, according to the precept of the rule of his Order, day and night, in the law of Our -Lord.

2. The negligence, cowardice and lukewarmness from which we do not try to free ourselves during divine service are very often the cause that we are deprived of several graces and that we fall imperceptibly into hardening to sin and imperfection.

3. It is in vain that a Carmelite religious claims to advance in the perfection that God asks of him, if he does not make prayer, solitude, silence and contemplation his principal, and if he does not handle and consider all outside employments as accessories to his condition.

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4. His ardent desires to suffer martyrdom for the faith of Jesus Christ made him beg his brothers and his friends not to have regard to the human feelings which led them to persuade him to flee the greatest honor and happiness that could befall him. in this world; whereupon, addressing Our Lord, he said to Him in an ecstatic desire for death and martyrdom: It is enough, it is enough, O my God! You know the interior of my soul, take it when you please, it belongs to you and is absolutely yours.

5. His charity led him (after having received five stab wounds, now preaching the holy Gospel) to beseech his devoted and affectionate listeners (soaked as he was in his blood) to spare that of his executioner, and looking d With one eye fixed on the crucifix, he lovingly conjured him to want to forgive all those who had offended him, and moreover, that those who were not on his feast day on the day of his martyrdom receive some singular favors from Heaven through his intercession.

6. Good devotion owes much more

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to cherish and esteem an act of charity, patience, suffering, obedience or another act attached to the proper state of each one, than thousands of prayers of one's own will.

7. The truly obedient must go gently and indiscriminately to all the legitimate employments desired of him, without any discernment or reflection on what is enjoined and commanded.

8. His abstinence led him to fast three times a week on bread and water, and on other days to eat only raw beans softened in water, and on Sundays and feast days he used some herbs or vegetables.

9. He accompanied his rigorous abstinence with harsh treatment, with which he subjugated and afflicted his tender and delicate body, in order to mortify it well and subjugate it to the spirit; for this purpose he wore an iron cilice over his flesh, slept on the floor or on some table, fully clothed.

10. He who has a true love for austerities can and must skilfully avoid all the little respites permitted and sometimes granted for the relief of nature.

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11. His humility made him flee the world, the honors and the acclamations that were given to him, and he resolved to retire to the same desert where Jesus Christ fasted and remained forty days and forty nights; there applying himself to very bitter and very rough penances, to extremely rigorous fasts and to a very solid and perfect devotion, meditating incessantly on the mysteries of Heaven.

12. The memory of the fast that Jesus Christ had made in this solitude served him as the most delicious meal; and replaying in his mind the unspeakable rigors that the Incarnate Word had wanted to suffer for the salvation of the world, his eyes shed oceans of tears.

13. How little or how much love we have for mortification will infallibly be the measure of our sanctification, since as much as we die to ourselves, so much does God live in us.

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MAXIMS OF SAINT MARIE-MADELEINE DE PAZZI.

MAXIMS FOR THE CONDUCT OF SUPERIORS.

1. The Superior must be in his monastery a tableau of virtues mixed with these two rich colours: gentleness and seriousness.

2. It is the earthly oracle of the Divinity: it must have as many eyes as it has souls in charge.

3. One must first take counsel and license from Jesus Christ before giving any counsel or command.

4. The Superior will never repeat a fault without first having full knowledge of it.

5. The offices of Religion must be distributed with discreet equality, in view of

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only to the strength and capacity of the subjects; no to nobility of blood nor to anything that smacks of the world and vanity.

6. When we proceed purely and sincerely to the election of Superiors, God gives them a special assistance of the Holy Spirit to govern and lead.

7. Great is the cruelty of Superiors, not to exercise their inferiors in virtue: it is to deprive them of the opportunities of merit.

8. Manifest the graces that God gives you only to your Superiors who are vicars and servants of Jesus Christ, and in whom resides divine authority.

9. It is a ruse of the enemy to tear us from confidence in our Superiors, preventing us from going to find them to reveal to them our temptations.

10. The only way to end a peaceful life with a happy death is to simply allow oneself to be led by one's Superiors and to do all one's actions in the presence of God.

Oh ! How happy is that Religion, to which God provides powerful Superiors to do and say!

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MAXIMS FOR THOSE WHO ENTER INTO RELIGION.

1. Vocation in religion is the greatest grace that God can give to his elect, in this life, after baptism.

2. Religion is an earthly paradise in which the soul unites itself more closely with God, participates more abundantly in the treasures of the Church, enjoys a very sweet peace, which deifies it, so to speak, from this earth, and which perfumes him divinely.

3. Newcomers to religion should be carefully taught the importance of worship and divine service; how punctual they must be in all the duties which this worship prescribes for us; how they must especially watch over their interior, and with what reverence they must receive the sacraments of Confession and Eucharist, in order to be pleasing to God.

4. After that, you must lead them gently, and lead them little by little, as if by hand, to the exercises of the spiritual life; to animate them by word and example to acquire the true and solid virtues; make them estimate

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much their vocation; and finally to instruct them in all that concerns the Rule and the Constitutions which they must embrace.

5. It would be much better to remain in the world than to be damned in Religion.

6. One must enter into Religion with a very pure intention, and not be dragged into it by force or by worldly considerations.

7. The Novice must be as if dead in the hands of her Mother Mistress.

8. Religion is like a traffic and like a trade where one earns one hundred for one, when one knows how to manage one's resources well.

9. The shortest, purest and surest way to Paradise is that of Religion.

10. The two bases or the two pivots of Religion are fervor of spirit and contempt for the world and for oneself.

11. Religion purifies, illuminates and perfects the whole man, inside and out.

12. The eyes of the Nun are closed and closed to all things of the earth, and open

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to the things of Heaven to see only Jesus Christ.

13. Bile and honey should have the same taste for us, and we should desire no other liquor than that which flows from the breasts of Religion.

14. As soon as you have been clothed with the sacred habit, take as a general maxim that you should never think, do or say anything that is not worthy of the nobility of the religious state.

MAXIMS FOR THE PRACTICE OF THE THREE VOWINGS.

1. All that will be lacking in this life to persons engaged in the religious state will be given to them in the next.

2. However ill you may be, never take anything that does not smack of the poverty of the religious state.

3. Religious poverty is little known, and even less observed.

4. Evangelical poverty commands no

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only to leave, but to give what we have.

5. Woe! misfortune! woe to whoever introduces vanity and the desire for possession into the Holy Religion, where simplicity and poverty reign principally.

6. Examine yourself once a month to see if your heart is attached to something, and immediately renounce this thing in the hands of your Superior.

7. Oh! that the petty human and terrestrial traffics, which are sometimes found in monasteries, deprive souls of the means of trading Heaven and eternity with Jesus Christ! And please God that in the end they do not deprive them of the divine vision!

8. Chastity is a rose that only grows in walled gardens and among thorns.

9. It is she who builds for the soul an ivory throne in Paradise.

10. Oh! if we knew the merit and the excellence of this angelic virtue, we would shut ourselves up in the most secluded monasteries.

11. We must kiss the railings and the walls

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of the convent like the hedge that guards this whitening lily.

12. Purity and chastity should dwell universally in all parts of body and mind.

13. Purity is found only in souls that live the life of the spirit; and the mark of this life is never to speak ill or hear ill of your neighbor, but to love him as yourself.

14. Purity is so pure, that if it allowed the mixture of something else, it would no longer be purity.

15. Make no mistake about it, one can only enter the temple of purity through that of simplicity: one of these virtues cannot be acquired without the other.

16. The Bridegroom of pure souls preserves the faithful wives in the midst of perfidious suggestions, as he did of old for the three children in the furnace.

17. The smallest imperfection is great darkness, to inner purity.

18. Divine poverty is acquired by

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interior and exterior mortification, by guarding the heart, by the cleanliness of the body and by humility.

19. Obedience is the mystical bed of which Solomon speaks.

20. Perfect obedience requires a soul without will, a will without judgment, a judgment without mind and blind to everything except to obey everyone.

21. Your obedience must be accompanied by joy, humility, simplicity, promptness and perseverance.

22. O my daughters, let us listen to the voice of our Superiors, as if it were God himself speaking.

23. The inferior must consider himself unworthy to receive the commands of his superior, as well as incapable of carrying them out.

24. Obedience which enjoins something against the will of God, against the Constitutions of the Rule and against the good of the soul, is no longer obedience, but a monster or a phantom.

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25. Consider lost the day when you will not have obeyed any of the Sisters.

26. The person engaged in the religious state has not given his will to men, but to God; not by fragmentation and parcels, but entirely. What a sacrilege to snatch it from him or tear it to pieces!

27. The smallest part of simple obedience is worth a million times better than a whole great measure of the severest contemplation.

28. Oh! how it would be to wish that each and every one of our actions were constantly enjoined by obedience!

29. Oh! good Jesus! what sweetness is enclosed in this simple word: "the will of God"!

30. One must, once a month, after a serious examination, punish oneself for all his negligence in obeying and doing the will of God.

MAXIMUMS FOR REGULAR OBSERVANCE.

1. One of the greatest obligations of a person engaged in the religious state is to

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to let oneself be instructed in the practice of his Rule and of his Statutes, doing all the penances which are specified therein and fleeing from every kind of excess, which is always vicious.

2. One should have great horror of any kind of singularity, however small it may be, since to observe his Rule punctually is the surest way and the straightest way.

3. The obligation that each Religious has to keep her Rule and her Constitutions is so great and so narrow that one must live and die in the punctual observance of these Rules, without worrying whether this or that one keeps it or not.

4. God wants a Religious to value his Rule as much as himself.

5. We must always strive to impress upon souls the esteem for their vocation.

6. The most effective means of acquiring great treasures of merit in eternity is to be always regularly in the holy assembly and community.

7. Singularity is the shadow of death.

8. We must try carefully to

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to supply and to satisfy for all the faults which are committed in the monastery.

9. It would be better to die a thousand times than to break any of our Rules and Regulations.

10. As often as you fail in the observances and regularities of Religion, so many times you strike, so to speak, God in the apple of the eye.

11. Consider, religious soul, that Religion is a sacred bond which must represent to you the college of the Apostles.

12. Oh! yes, no doubt, it is the office of the angels to chant in the choir; and their purity is hardly great enough to sing divine praises.

13. Any other meditation or private exercise is of little merit in comparison with the Divine Office.

14. What a wonder! God attends the choir and the psalmody in a very special way. The reverence and purity of the same Angels would therefore be necessary for us to praise him as we should.

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15. A good example is one of the greatest honors that can be given to God.

MAXIMS FOR THE PRACTICE OF THE OTHER VIRTUES.

1. Virtue which is restricted without being communicated is not virtue.

2. One must, in the practice of the virtues and in all one's actions, set oneself the example of Jesus Christ.

3. O souls who desire in a short time to make great progress in virtue, choose as teacher and preceptor Jesus Christ on the tree of the Cross or in the divine Eucharist.

4. Is it not true that in everything and for everything we must imitate Jesus incarnate, who appeared here below only in servitude and abasement?

5. O the beautiful virtue that the virtue of humility... It is this which opens the door to Heaven to us, since each time we practice it we pay a little for the debts of sin.

6. The same degrees that lower us to

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the earth lift us up in glory to Paradise; and he will see more clearly the divine Essence who will have humbled himself more humbly.

7. God, on the nothingness and nothingness of humility and religious simplicity, builds a world of perfection.

8. I hold suspect those creatures who are fashionable and in credit, loved and esteemed by everyone. On the contrary, I delight in conversing with the most abject and despicable creatures.

9. If I could or wanted to take offense at any creature, it would be those lofty spirits, who think themselves perfect and accomplished, looking upon all others as the dust of their feet.

10. To accuse one's virtues and to excuse the sins of others are the two effects of humility, and this is the characteristic of a religious soul.

11. The soul that accuses itself and reveals its sins deserves that Jesus Christ covers them with his blood by forgiving them.

12. To apologize even though one would be wrongly accused is to cease to be a Religious.

13. Oh! what an invaluable advantage for

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us to have at our side a particular and chosen Religious, who accuses us of all our faults, without forgiving us any!

14. Our perfection rests on these two bases: the desire to be submitted to all, and the horror of being preferred to the smallest.

15 . Let your patience be strong and joyful; walk in the exercise of this virtue as on the great road to Paradise and eternity.

16. The brevity of this life putting an end to all suffering, one must work and enjoy the very noble exercise of patience, since it is the most perfect imitation of the Word made man.

17. What is a religious soul? It is an unshakable rock.

18. Virtue without trials is not virtue; and patience without suffering is like a very light tincture, which often has only the bark and the appearance of good without having its essence.

19. Afflictions serve as purgatory in this life and deliver us from them in the next.

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20. Virtue is feminine only in name; for everything else, she is male and virile.

21. What a shame to recreate in the midst of roses, while Jesus Christ walks on thorns!

22. The caresses and delicacies of the heavenly Bridegroom are insults, crosses and torments.

23. Joy, contentment and tranquility are like arms and hands destined to usefully receive all kinds of mortifications and reprimands.

24. The most excessive suffering becomes glorious and savory when we look at Jesus on the cross.

25. The rose is only gathered from the thorns, and God is seldom found among the sweets and delicacies of the spirit, but only in the midst of true and solid virtue.

26. The life of a religious soul is in the death of Jesus Christ, and she never wants to taste any other honey than the gall of the Passion.

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27. You shouldn't care more about your body than a kitchen towel.

28. When Superiors do not deem it appropriate to use extraordinary austerities to repel the temptations of the enemy, they must be compensated by longer and more fervent prayers than usual.

29. Your prayer should be humble, fervent, resigned, persevering, deeply respectful; you must consider that you are in the presence of God, and that you are speaking to a God before whom the celestial Virtues tremble with respect and fear.

30. Prayer is the spirit of religion; but it must not serve as a pretext for any dispensation: for all the practices of obedience and religion are, in the eyes of God, so many prayers.

31. The fruit of prayer is mortification.

32. O the great grace that God gives us when he refuses us in our prayers!

33. Our prayers should be conditional, never asking God for more than his most loving will.

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34. How sublime and excellent are these words: God's will!

35. Inner peace is an effect of mental prayer, and a reward of union with God.

36. I would willingly deprive myself of all kinds of graces to gratify my neighbor; but I would never deprive myself of the will not to offend God.

37. I don't know how it can be that a person deliberately offends God.

38. The new, express and proper commandment of Jesus Christ and to love one another.

39. Compassion is the daughter of charity.

40. All things should be done with charity and out of charity.

41. We must ask God every day for as many souls as we take steps and steps.

42. Holy charity is full of readiness and joy, serving the neighbor as God himself who regards as done to

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him all that is done to his members for his love.

43. The true prudence of a male or female religious depends on the intimate union he has with God; and all our strength and our resources must be drawn from the blood of Jesus Christ.

44. A day passed without some mortification is a day wasted.

45. The soul clothed in charity is all-powerful.

MAXIMS FOR SPEAKING AND CONVERSATION.

1. It is not enough to be silent with the lips, if we do not also keep the silence of the heart.

2. One of the main fruits of our community life must be the horror of the gates and the parlor.

3. The Nun will never speak except humbly, modestly, rarely, and only out of necessity, since one of the main points and articles of the rigorous account that must be rendered is idle and useless speech.

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4. Never open your lips to speak, until your mind has first considered whether it is for the glory of God, whether it is for the benefit of your neighbor, and whether then it is necessary to talk

5. The words of a religious soul must be words of truth, leniency and justice.

6. One must close one's lips to the things of the earth if one wants to receive the dew from Heaven like the mother-pearls.

7. A nun must be very exact in the time of silence: for what is said then, without severe necessity, is hardly free from culpe and sin.

8. The words of the Religious must be a magnet that attracts hearts and a rule of virtue that edifies.

9. Your conversation will be gentle, cheerful, humble, patient, careful and silent.

10. Think that all the nuns with whom you find yourself in contact are angels on earth, image bearers of the great God and spouses of Jesus Christ.

11. Imagine again that each of

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your Sisters is the daughter of the Eternal Father, the spouse of the Son and the temple of the Holy Spirit, the sister of the Angels, and never speak of her except as you would do of these things.

12. The Religious must consider herself unworthy of conversing with her Sisters, and even of kissing the ground on which they walk.

13 Oh! that if we were attentive to the great duties imposed on us by our state, we would not amuse ourselves by listening to murmurs or saying idle words!

14. Esteem your neighbor and talk about him just as you want to be esteemed and talked about.

15. One must never discover anyone's faults.

16. With Superiors one must converse humbly, with equals modestly, with inferiors sweetly, but with all gravely and gently.

17. We must look at our neighbor from the side that he bears the imprint of the image of God: so much so that, when we see some imperfection in someone, we must believe that Our Lord does not cease to take pleasure in this latter,

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because of some inner perfection that we do not see.

18. Associate with individuals with the caution of the serpent; frequent the nuns with the simplicity of the dove.

19. Have your eyes open to the virtues of your neighbour, closed and closed to his imperfections.

GENERAL RULES AND MAXIMUMS.

1. The soul united to God is full of joy within, and without always shows a serene countenance, without ever being troubled by any accident.

2. What attracts the divine eye to us is that of our good intention.

3. The most pleasing sacrifice in the eyes of the divine Majesty is that of goodwill, works being all the more meritorious the more voluntary they are.

4. A Religious must offer herself to the Eternal Father as her daughter, to the Son as her spouse, to the Holy Spirit as her disciple.

5. Blessed are those who dwell continually

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in the pierced side of Jesus Christ and who place and establish there all their works.

6. All our strength, all our skill and all our industry is in the blood of Jesus Christ which changes the old Adam into a new man.

7. Do not go, but run; not run, but fly perfectly.

8. Fervor is the flame which must continually rekindle all our spiritual exercises and the practices of our regularity, doing nothing neither out of routine nor out of sheer nature.

9. She is the most perfect who desires more truly to honor God and to do in everything and for everything his most holy and most lovable will.

10. The bride of Jesus Christ must resemble the prudent of the world who keep secret reservations; she must heap up in her heart treasures of good works hidden from men and known to God alone: ​​for this currency, more than any other, is current in Heaven.

11. The shortest and surest way to attract

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God in his soul is to distance himself infinitely from all imperfection, fleeing the very shadow of sin.

12. Alas! we ought to die of horror even hearing the name of a sin.

13. We must share with God the pain caused to him by the offenses committed against his will.

14. Everything displeasing to God is sin and sin.

15. The slightest imperfection, even if it were as thin as a hair on the head, notably prevents union with God.

16. The soul must have two inner eyes: one to know the enormity of its faults; the other to continually see the graces she receives from God, the little fruit she draws from them: graces that any other would make bear fruit much more usefully

17. The eyes of a nun must look at no other object than Jesus Christ, who is the beauty of beauties; and her hands are cursed if she uses them for profane purposes.

18. In all things strip yourselves of all self-reputation; and in what touches the interior, seek only conformity with the most holy will of God.

19. In your outside jobs, do not make more of your body than a broom or a kitchen towel, showing yourself in all things tireless, humble and resigned to obey the Superior.

20. But in all that it suits you to do, whether outside or within, remember always to cast a lively look of love towards God, imploring the help of his graces and praying to his Majesty that he please think, act and speak by you and in you, for all that will be commanded to you. Offer him with this all your actions and all your sufferings in honor of the adorable works that the Word made man has operated, and of the Passion that the Word made man has suffered on earth.

21. We must flee as far as possible from any action which has brilliance and which is grand in appearance: for it is there that pride hides, all the more dangerous when it is disguised and hidden. On the contrary, vile, base works of no esteem in the eyes of men

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are of great price and merit before God.

22. All actions of religious life should be simple, vile and abject.

23. Actions that give us credit deprive us of charity for our neighbour, if we deviate from simplicity.

24. Outer works should be done promptly and diligently, without any prejudice, however, to the inner life.

25. When one has begun an external action well, completing it without embarrassment and in all simplicity is a rare means of maintaining humility.

26. The ambition of a religious soul must be to become mistress of his passions.

27. In every religion one must ask God for five things which are supremely necessary for his support and for his support: 1° union between the Religious and charity with God; 2° punctual obedience; 3° Superiors similar to God and who are after the heart of God, who maintain the simplicity and regularity of the holy Observance; 4° the grace of never relaxing the vow of poverty;

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5° finally the grace that all those who will be called to religious life be enlightened with an effective light, which will make them know perfectly how important is the abnegation of one's own will and the complete and rigorous observance of the smallest things of the Holy Rule.

28. The nuns assigned to the various offices of the convent must with charity and diligence provide for the needs of the Sisters, having regard only to necessity, without respect for any other consideration.

29. Never refuse what is asked of you, if you are allowed to give it.

30. One must continually offer oneself and all creatures, with Jesus Christ, to the Eternal Father: this is an excellent preparation for communion.

31. Often go and greet the Blessed Sacrament from the altar and present your adoration and respect to it.

32. darling triumphs over all things; it is like our fortress and our arsenal.

33. My Sisters, remember, going to the

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Confessional, that you go there to bathe and to wash yourselves in the wounds and the blood of Jesus Christ.

34. Take care that your confession be frequent, exact, diligent, humble and full of confusion.

35. When the priests live badly, it is the sun which is eclipsed, it is the light which changes into darkness, throwing disorder everywhere.

36. Alas! alas! how many souls are damned for not having offered for them the

blood of Jesus Christ!

37. We should desire to suffer the very pains of purgatory to save souls.

38. It is an enormous crime to despise the Indulgences which are the price of the blood of Jesus Christ and as the reservoir of the treasures and riches of the Church.

39. What passes between the Bridegroom and the Bride of Jesus Christ is known only to those who are pure and spotless.

40. The piety of Men and Women Religious should have no other object of occupation or

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maintenance, here below, than the sacred humanity of Jesus, since it will be one of the principal objects of our heavenly happiness.

41. One must envy the ground of Calvary which was bathed and watered with the blood of Jesus Christ.

42. Three nails fastened the divine Savior to the cross, three in the bosom of Mary, three in the bosom of the Eternal Father. The first are: obedience, humility and conformity to the will of God; the other three are: purity, love and conformity of the Blessed Virgin to the good pleasure of God, the last three are: nature, equality and complacency.

43. Past and present examples must test us keenly.

44. Cursed human respect is a hungry wolf, a roaring lion, which devours and swallows up most of our good works.

45. Virtue makes the spirit of the Nun so perfectly good that she converts everything to good, never seeing anything bad in her neighbour.

46. ​​We overcome all kinds of temptations

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with the grace of God, with fidelity and with mortification, invoking his patron saints, and revealing everything to his Superiors.

47. Imagine that each of your acts is the last of your life, and that it must decide an eternity of happiness or an eternity of unhappiness.

48. The duration of a building depends on the solidity of the foundation which supports it. A religious soul cannot persevere if it does not base all its works and its virtues on the simplicity and truth of God: without these two foundations it would be better to leave everything there, to practice no virtue and not to undertake to build anything in the spiritual life. .

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SENTENCES AND WORDS OF THE

BLESSED FRANÇOISE OF AMBOISE.

1. The Holy Spirit coming to the religious world, he will rebuke it for three sins, principally negligence in obeying, cowardice in doing penance and curiosity in looking at the faults of others.

2. Obedience is the first of the religious vows which binds us hands and feet to put us in the possession and in the domain of God; to withdraw from it is to commit larceny and sacrilege: which means that Our Lord is often constrained, like a schoolmaster, to give us discipline.

3. The way to be perfectly obedient is to renew one's vows and one's first fervor; to imagine that one no longer has either body or soul, no longer worrying about what to be employed for, leaving all the whys in the hands of Superiors.

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4. To live with peace, one must live without attachment to one's own reasoning, and to die well consider Jesus Christ obedient unto death, and the death of the Cross.

5. To nurture peace, one must shun all kinds of relationships and exercise patience with the infirm and sick.

6. The main object of our vocation is not to know the rule, but to keep it well; and when it forbids us all property, it is small things as well as great, and of our will more than of all the rest, the thing not making sin, but indeed affection; and it is great folly to damn oneself for little.

7. Silence is the mark and character of a Carmelite. Great talkers are never great religious, nor are great religious great speakers. Talking too much is the greatest evil of the cloister, and it is the shame of the infirmity of our sex.

8. Although the holy Time does not make holy people, but holy persons make holy Time, we must nevertheless, to the

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happy feasts of Our Lord, of the Virgin and of the Order, to excite oneself to a new devotion.

9. The chapters are for correcting faults: there we must do charity to each other, none being able to know all its faults. Each will answer for herself and her neighbour, namely the Superior, who will put soul for soul. It is a great pity when there are souls in religion so full of themselves that one would not dare to reprove them.

10. To live happily, one must abandon oneself in everything and everywhere to the divine disposition, submit to reason, follow the judgment and will of others rather than one's own, and, provided one has the heart united with God, disregarding good and bad fame; do what you have to, let others do what they want.

11. The right path to Paradise is suffering; humiliation increases merit. To overcome oneself and to suffer whatever pleases God and men is to earn a crown equal to that of martyrdom.

12. Forget the world, think about God, take care

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with oneself, inquire into nothing, die to everything, never waste time, leave things as they are, study oneself and profit in one's vocation, be on one's guard, walk in the presence of God , keeping one's rule, imitating the lives of the Saints, this is the true life of a Carmelite and a Carmelite.

13. It's harder to heal a lick than a spear; and of all restitutions, that of honor taken away by detraction is the most difficult.

14. One must not believe one's salvation assured to be in a cloister; our vows contain only four words that are easy to say, difficult to make: it would be better not to bind oneself than to break one's vows. To live according to the rule and its statutes is really to be perfect.

15. One must always live in the state to which one would like to die: for blessed is the servant whom the master finds watching and working.

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LIGHTS AND SENTENCES OF BLESSED SISTER MARY OF THE INCARNATION.

1. You should never undertake anything except in the sight of God and out of attention to his adorable presence.

2. One must bring an unselfish spirit to all things and act with great righteousness and purity of intention, since therein lies and consists the foundation of all true virtues.

3. It is necessary to bring oneself to all that concerns charity, without difference from the great to the small and without allowing oneself to be distracted by the diversity of things, conforming in this to God who provides indifferently for small creatures and for large ones, and continually keeps his eyes on them, without his being more diverted by the application of his Providence to all things in

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general than to each one in particular, as if all were but one thing and the same creature.

4. Her love of the Cross and of suffering led her to bless them all, and she often said that she could not understand that sadness could find place where the Christian and religious soul sees that the will of God is accomplishes.

5. Her directors wishing to oblige her to moderate her great austerities and harsh penances, she conjured them to tell her if they did not believe that it was the spirit of God which led her to perform them. To which, having answered in the affirmative, she replied to them: Now if it is the same spirit which leads me to austerity and which distances me as far as possible from all the satisfactions of nature, if this spirit is of God as you assure me, I must believe it without going to against it.

6. Human prudence must be highly suspect to us, especially as it closes the avenues to the spirit of God and to his holy grace.

7. It is necessary to have very singular tenderness and affections for simple souls and

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sincere, because simplicity and sincerity towards God are the foundation of all virtue. 8. Being required and solicited by people of high piety to acquiesce in the pursuits and prayers made to her to receive in religion a person who was to bring ten thousand crowns there, she said on this subject, that she would never advise to receive into religion a soul which has no vocation to it, even if it were to come from a world of conveniences; but to a soul that would be called there, I would like to receive it for nothing and give everyone to make it enter it.

9. At the beginning of her entry into religion, she often made reflections and reflections on herself, all filled with humiliations and abjections, and said: When I look at myself, I see myself so miserable that it seems to me that I am like a useless dog, and that I must be driven out of the house of God, in which I am so useless; it makes me so confused that they would crush me with their foot like a little worm, without my being able or daring to complain, because I feel and know that all this is due to me, and even more.

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10. Her aversion to sin made her say that if we were able to see what sin is, we would have more horror of it, and more fear of the things that lead to it than of the devil. even.

11. It was only with horror that she saw herself arrested in a life so perilous and where everything is so uncertain, and said that we were only attached to God there by a thread of his mercy, that the most little wind of temptation can break and make us fall into hell.

12. The soul should not be esteemed any more for having had great graces from God, since it is only like a pot of very dirty earth which, having been sometimes filled with great riches and precious stones, does not is not more valuable in itself.

13. We should not be sorry to see ourselves full of faults, but we should humble ourselves a lot.

14 We should not be surprised any more to see the faults coming out of our base corrupted by pride than to see the bad odor coming out of the manure; and the faults must be in the soul

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what manure is to the earth, it serves to fatten it and make it fertile.

15. She proposed to herself the example of the life of the Saints whom God had drawn to Him by the way of humility and by the spirit of penance, to serve as a model for hers. But above all she tenderly honored the first thirty years of the life of Our Lord, because of the great ratio of the occupations to which she employed all this time and to which the Lay Sisters are destined: from which it happened that she ordinarily received more than lights and excellent knowledge, when she washed the dishes or busied herself with the lowest offices of the kitchen as when she was in interior retreat and in prayer.

16. His tenderness for Jesus crucified made him say that it was from him that the remedy must be drawn to deaden in hearts the ardor of self-love and the heat of impatience; that it is the most sovereign and unique lenitive for the hearts that God holds in bitterness and for the souls that sigh in humiliation. Well ! she said pointing to the Crucifix, what shall we say, seeing this

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object? can we find something hard? What can we complain about, seeing the Son of God reduced to such an extremity?

17. Humility is always generous, always ready to undertake great things in the sight of God, and not of itself, because it expects nothing from itself, but everything from God.

18. Humility should enter everywhere, and one should not withdraw from good either for the consideration of men or for fear of one's own confusion. We must have an aversion to those hypocritical and lazy souls, who, in order to pass off their laziness for an interior and retired life, shun work and condemn the occupations of active life, as contrary to the peace and holy tranquility of life. contemplation. God is not idle; one learns just as well to find it in action as in prayer. Devotion and prayer are not to be valued, except insofar as they end in the practice of the virtues. Virtue lies in working well, and it is a mistake to think of having it without working; people who are called spiritual and do not want

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do nothing, are more carnal than spiritual, all their actions are self-love.

19. The truly obedient obeys at all times, in all ways, perfectly, without failing: and no one can call himself obedient who fails only once to obey.

20. He alone deserves to be called poor, who delights and is content in his poverty and desires nothing more.

21. We never really know what it is to be poor except when we lack the things we need.

22. Of all the virtues there is none so delicate as poverty, seeing that whatever moderation we bring to the external use of things, the least desire or affection that we have in the heart to have something thing, is enough to prevent true poverty in us.

23. We should willingly bear all kinds of imperfections in a soul; but to see that she lacks confidence in God and that she does not want to serve Him in self-abandonment is an unbearable thing.

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24. Her love for the Cross and suffering was so great that one day seeing herself asked by a nun to pray so that her illness would be less sensitive to her, as Saint Thomas Aquinas did in a similar encounter: Ah! no, she said, I don't care, I do honor this great saint, but I don't love him for that; I don't like people exempting themselves from enduring.

25. When one is afflicted with distractions in prayer and one prays in order to stop in God and on the subject of one's meditation, one must therefore enter into the exercise and practice of the virtue of humility, confounding himself before his divine Majesty and annihilating himself in his impotence.

26. It is presumption to expect everything from God in prayer; something must be done with ordinary grace, like reading three or four lines from a pious and devout book, in order to excite and warm the will.

27. We must, accusing ourselves of our faults, call them by their names, without disguising them or seeking words that diminish them.

28. We should rejoice when our faults are

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known and public: because it is a great way to acquire humility and correct oneself.

29. It is much better to apply oneself to taming the passions than to amuse oneself with many subtleties: like inquiring whether it is not acting against perfection to do this or that.

30. The presumptuous soul is like a quagmire or stagnant water: when nothing is said to it, it feels nothing; but as soon as you stir it on picking it up, it immediately stinks and exhales a very bad odor.

31. It is a great virtue to ask God to endure; but it is still a much more excellent one, and one of greater perfection, than to abandon oneself blindly and without reserve to the guidance of one's very wise and very loving Providence.

32. Divine love is maintained by the practice of the virtues, as well as fire with wood and other combustible materials.

33. It is necessary to speak much more to religious souls of mortification and of the other virtues than of prayer: for as they advance

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in mortification, also they do it in the exercise of prayer.

34. Do not think that you are ever better in the good graces and in the friendship of God than when you endure something for his love.

35. Measure your holiness by your death and release, and your death and release by your resentments.

36. You will do more pleasure and service to God by mortifying even the smallest pursuits of your nature and self-love than by exercising yourself in acts of the harshest and most austere penance that can be done.

37. Unless we abandon ourselves absolutely and blindly to the care of divine Providence, we should not hope to make any profit in the path of Christian and religious perfection.

38. The two truths on which we must establish our spiritual edifice are to persuade ourselves in the first place that we are only what we are before God; secondly, that he is too miserly for whom God is not sufficient.

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SPIRITUAL ADVICE OF THE VENERABLE MOTHER MADELEINE OF SAINT-JOSEPH.

1. We must be careful to notice the inspirations of God, so that having known what he asks of us, we will be faithful to undertake it, however much pain we may have.

2. Since man was created of God only to serve him, he is bound and obliged to banish from himself all other thoughts, all other desires, all other loves, all other memories, all other looks and all other interests. , and he must use all his forces and powers, which are very small, to honor a God who is so worthy of honor.

3. All life is given to begin to serve God. The practice of one virtue is a disposition to acquire another. After

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death we will begin a life of glory in heaven, where everything will be perfect; but on earth we must always and at every moment begin and say with the prophet David: Ecce nunc coepi: Now I start.

4. We must never, where it is in the interest of God, look at that of creatures.

5. One must have great recourse to the Son of God in temptation and look in him for the virtues contrary to the imperfections which one feels attacked.

6. Our Lord takes great pleasure in seeing the souls who are his, pass their lives in silence, in patience and in prayer.

7. A soul that wants to follow Jesus Christ must never seek rest, but work incessantly and continuously until death.

8. When mortification ceases, grace is lost, and grace, though great, is withdrawn when works fail us.

9. One should not fall down at the sight of one's faults nor be discouraged by one's imperfections, but one should be humbled by them. It is the property of

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children of God to rise up and profit from their own falls.

10. Virtue is difficult to acquire, and those who say it is not, show that they have not tried it.

11. Value the solid practice of virtue more highly than many visions and revelations: for, unless accompanied by great humility, mortification, and submission of spirit, the soul may be lost in these gifts. extraordinary.

12. When you find yourself devoid of all the virtues, you must go to Our Lord Jesus Christ as to your wealth and pray to him that he will fill you with them; he needs neither days nor months to do it: in a moment he can enrich you.

13. We must always bind ourselves to the purposes of Jesus Christ in all things and contribute to their accomplishment with all our power.

14. Remember that Jesus Christ chose the way of suffering to enter into his glory and that he left it to be shared by his chosen ones, wanting that they should have no other riches of the earth, except subjugation, humiliation

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and the cross, by which they must bind themselves to him who died there for them.

15. The life of the Saints and of the elect of God is accompanied by many works; you have to pass the time in patience and humility.

16. Suffering is the way that the Son of God taught us in his life, in his actions and in his death; it is what he left to his children and to his chosen ones to sanctify them, and more particularly to those who must belong to him more in the state of grace and glory.

17. When we have some great sorrow, we must remember these words that the Son of God said to his apostles in the Garden of Olives: Can't you keep watch with me for an hour? and draw strength from it to remain awake and suffering with him.

18. It matters little whether one is in action or in rest; but it is very important that one be separated from oneself in both.

19. Many seek the cross of speech, who flee it on occasion.

20. The quality of children of God that we

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we carry and which was acquired for us by the Cross and by the blood of Jesus Christ, obliges us to continually deny ourselves and all that is of sin, to live the life of the children of God, which is not not a life of delight, but of suffering, of the Cross and of death.

21. It is not pain, but indisposition that prevents us from working in the practice of the virtues: for the grace of suffering never prevents that of yielding to all the things to which we are obliged.

22. The soul must never be discouraged, so that it fails in the hope that God wants it to have of enjoying him and possessing him eternally; and to testify how pleasant he is in this hope, he has compelled us to do so under penalty of sin,

23. We must work with fear, while we are in this life: for, as the earth is a place of darkness and obscurity, we cannot there know whether we are worthy of love or hate.

24. We must always make use of time and moments, because we only have

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that in our hands; if one finds oneself with pain and suffering, one must be strong to render to God what one owes him in this state and go to him in patience and humility; if one finds oneself better disposed, one must make use of it to work faithfully for virtue.

25. The spirit of God never comes with trouble and worry; but when he enters into a soul to let it know something he asks of it, it is with great peace, gentleness and tranquility.

26. Perfection does not consist in fine words or good desires, but in perfect works.

27. You must neither ask for nor refuse anything, but be ready for whatever obedience wants to do with you.

28. One must be submissive to all creatures: for, without the submission of the spirit and the senses, one cannot be to Jesus Christ, according to his word: Whoever does not deny himself cannot be my disciple.

29. When you give an account of the dispositions of your soul, it must not be to receive satisfaction from those to whom

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you speak of it, but to receive the grace that Our Lord Jesus Christ has merited for you and that he wants to give you through this communication.

30. When we pray or ask God's forgiveness for sinners, we should always put ourselves first in number.

31. When you receive a few graces from God, you should not stop there to enjoy them, but think that God is ready to give you more if you prepare yourself to receive them; and so you must accept those he gives you out of love for him and to honor him more, cutting off the part that your self-love could play in them.

32. Souls that go simply and innocently are filled with the fullness of God, and I value simplicity and innocence more than revelations and even greater suffering.

33. You must speak little, remembering that it is impossible not to make several mistakes by speaking a lot.

34. Always speak humbly and softly,

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in homage to the words of the Son of God.

35. You should never talk about anyone, except to tell about their virtues.

36. Always seek the lowest and humblest things, and rejoice when you are despised.

37. When we receive the absolution of our faults and sins, we must bind ourselves to the acts of contrition that Our Lord Jesus Christ did for us, when he was on earth, and beg him to look at us now as his daughters and servants, and not as his enemies.

38. We must ask the Blessed Virgin to teach us to adore, love and honor her Son.

39. Much must be asked of the great Saint Joseph that he exercise over us his quality of father, which he has over all souls, then because the Son of God wanted to recognize him as father on earth; and we others have a particular right to regard it in this quality, since we are more especially daughters of the Blessed Virgin.

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40. We must have great recourse to the saints, whose name we bear, since God has given them to us to take care of us.

41. Speak much to God and little to creatures; silence is a great thing and very necessary to acquire perfection.

42. Be gentle with others and strict with yourselves; and when something painful presents itself, always take charge of it in order to discharge another.

43. What makes us grow in humility must be greatly agreeable to us, and we must dearer a humiliation, from wherever it happens to us, than if we were given the possession of some great treasure.

44. Charity is such a great virtue that we must not let a day pass without asking the Son of God for it; he himself asked his Father for us when he said to him: Let them all be one, just as I am in you and you are in me.”

45. We must work carefully to remove in ourselves even the smallest imperfection, for there is none which, in any way,

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way, separate us from God: therefore we must not neglect them.

46. ​​There is nothing that man fears more than subjection, nor nothing that he loves better than his freedom: this is why God wants us to make a sacrifice of it to him; and for my part I make no case of all the devotions of souls, if they are not subject.

47. It is a dangerous thing to judge one's neighbour: for very often what we judge to be imperfection in others is not, and even if it were, we must not do something that God forbids us. so expressly. Do not judge, and you will not be judged.

48. We very often judge souls who will judge us one day; the very Superiors who have the right to judge those who are inferior to them cannot nevertheless very often do so without danger.

49. We must be equal at all times, giving way neither to joy nor to sadness, always subject to what it pleases God to command over us, equally accepting work and rest, pain and ease ; then when

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we will have been tested in this valley of tears, one day will come that we will enter another life, where joy and peace will be eternal.

50. True retirement does not consist only in being alone all day, but in cutting off all vain and useless thoughts.

51. We must pass each day as the last of our life, and do each action as if it were the last we had to do.

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SPIRITUAL ADVICE OF MONSEIGNEUR ANTOINE GIRARD

BISHOP OF POITIERS

Died March 8, 1702

HAS A CARMELITE.

1. We are only made to love God: let us count as lost all that we have the misfortune not to do for him.

2. Work to desire only God alone: ​​everything that we seek outside of him, although in relation to him, is often only able to distance us from him by an agitation and an anxiety which are not to his liking. . Happy is the soul that cares only about God! It is without any comparison the greatest happiness of man, after that of possessing him, that we can hope for only in the other life.

3. Be faithful to live in continual death, and to value only what can

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conform to Jesus Christ crucified. Let this maxim be imprinted in your heart, and make it the principle and the rule of all your conduct until death.

4. It is much more difficult to live for God than to die for him.

5. Unite yourselves more and more with Jesus Christ in a strong, persevering and uniform way. Judge of everything as he judged, love what he loved, hate what he hated, esteem what he esteemed, despise what he despised; so that it is no longer you who live, but it is he who truly lives in you.

6. Speak little, write little, listen a lot to Our Lord within you, suffer with him, speak with him, act with him, let your motto be: God alone through Jesus Christ alone, in order to live in complete detachment. and general of all creatures.

7. Remember in your sorrows that we are happy to give ourselves to God with courage, not to enjoy him with sweetness, but to be crucified with him, without any consolation but that which he would like to grant us. from time to time as if out of pity, for

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to relax a little from our continual sufferings, which we must prefer to all the most innocent pleasures of the present life.

8. Try to lead a very common life outside, in relation to the people with whom you live; but within, continually united to God through Jesus Christ, through whom alone we have access to the Father.

9. Look often at Jesus Christ on the Cross. This great object of Jesus crucified for us cannot occupy us too much. It was the only science on which Saint Paul prided himself after having been caught up in the Third Heaven. It must be ours, in order to work to form him in us, to live by his spirit and to value nothing but what can make us perfectly conform to him.

10. Let us die in this world with Jesus Christ, and we will reign eternally in the next. As you remember his death, remember that it was the effect of his obedience to his Father's eternal will. It is this ineffable obedience that you must constantly have in view in order to imitate it as faithfully as you can throughout your life.

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You have made a vow to it: therefore act in everything only out of obedience, and only to obey like Our Lord Jesus Christ. Never ask for what you know your Superiors don't like. Our Lord could ask his Father for legions of angels to deliver him from his enemies, and he would have granted them; but he did not ask him, because his will was that he should die; and it is in view of this great example that I advise you never to ask them a second time what they will have judged appropriate to refuse you a first, and not to ask them at all what you will know them. displease.

11. Obedience is the virtue of your state, and nothing is so sanctifying for a nun. It is mainly by virtue of this virtue that you will become a true victim, in union with Jesus Christ, whose entire life Saint Paul gave us, in a word: he was obedient. One must be, and like this divine Saviour, unto death, and even the death of the Cross, if need be. What happiness when you have nothing but to obey!

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12. May the supreme charity that Our Lord Jesus Christ exercises towards us in the ineffable Sacrament of our Altars teach us to exercise it towards our neighbour, with whom this divine Bread must return the same thing to you. Learn there to give yourselves entirely without any reserve to this divine Saviour, who there gives himself entirely to you. When you are entirely his, you will seek only to please him; and when you have the happiness of satisfying your sisters, you will rejoice only in the hope of having satisfied him himself: for you know that he will take for granted what you do at the slightest of them for his sake. Speak to him often and always if you can, either to prepare yourselves to receive him, or to thank him for having come into you: this is the way to make your silence with creatures easy and useful.

13. Give yourselves to work by a spirit of penance, obedience and charity; add to it the most exact silence. The less communication you have with creatures, the more God will have with you.

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14. Voluntarily concern yourself with God alone: ​​he is the good Father, the good Confessor, the good Director and the good friend. All that is expected of creatures, however holy the pretext, harms more than serves our perfection, which you must seek, especially in a state as holy as yours.

15. God consulted in the secret of the heart is an excellent Director. A rule of Carmelite exactly kept in love and simplicity leaves hardly any guide to consult.

16. When obedience obliges you to use part of the time that you should give to prayer, do not expect to lose anything. It's up to you to win. Perfect obedience will make your work a most excellent prayer. Your life must be one continuous; every Christian is obliged to do so, how much more a Carmelite! To pray is to desire God, his kingdom, his justice. This desire must be uninterrupted in every faithful soul; how much more in the religious soul! To keep it pure and continuous, separate yourself from all creatures as much as you can. No particular friendship within

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with not one of your sisters, but a tender and respectful charity for all, regarding you as the last and deeming you happy to be able to serve them all in general and each in particular.

17. Be very afraid of the visiting room, and never invite anyone to come and see you. Write only the truly necessary letters, for God hardly speaks to us when we speak to creatures; and a Carmelite, who is destined for retirement and silence, leaves it by writing, unable to do otherwise.

18. When it comes to the question of the Testament that you ask me before leaving you, I believe that I will contain it in this single word: Obey, and if necessary until death, and even until death. of the Cross, if need be.

19. I am always struck and penetrated by these words of Scripture, that the Just live by faith! Meditate only on this throughout your retreat, in order to learn well this great and important truth, and that your whole life may be a life of faith, of continual vigilance over yourself and of prayer. watch and pray, dit

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Our Lord, so that you do not enter into temptation.

20. Make an effort to suffer with love all the pains that Our Lord will send you, of whatever nature they may be. Get away from all complaining and murmuring; nothing is more opposed to the spirit of the divine Lamb, which we so often have the happiness of receiving. As long as you can immolate your sorrows with him, without speaking of them to anyone but him, you will advance much more in virtue, and if you cannot digest them alone, you cannot take better advantage than to expose them to your Superiors, who will give you milk charitably, until you are capable of solid food.

21. Learn more and more to be meek and humble of heart, strive to lead a life entirely in God with Jesus Christ, your divine Spouse, with whom you will appear in his glory on the day of his manifestation, who will also be that of all the faithful souls who will have hidden themselves in this world with him.

22. Never ask for any distinction of

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your Superiors, rather fear it as infinitely dangerous to your self-esteem; and aspire only to the happy discernment that Jesus Christ will make of his elect for all eternity.

23. There is nothing good except to belong entirely to God: that alone is solid; all the rest is nothingness, vanity, falsehood, and unworthy of occupying our minds and our hearts, made for God alone.

24. The principle of inner peace of the soul must be union with Jesus Christ and detachment from all that is not him.

25. Enjoy in peace the holy rest that Our Lord makes you enjoy on Carmel; and remain all your life amazed that such a weak sheep could climb so high, and can continue to hold on to it. She is indebted to her divine Pastor, whom she must constantly look to, constantly awaiting his goodness for all his help and all his strength.

26. Think often of these words of the Apostle: You are dead, and your life is hid in God with Jesus Christ; and on the occasions you will find yourself easy to dissipate,

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say to yourself: I died as a Christian and even more as a Carmelite. I must not meddle in anything, nor take interest in anything, because I am already dead and I am dead to everything.

27. Convince yourself that you have nothing to do in this world but to continually sacrifice yourself to God, either by sacrificing yourself, or by willingly accepting to be sacrificed by others. Learn from Jesus Christ that spirit of sacrifice which is the soul of religion; and say with him on all occasions: Thy will be done, O my God, and not mine. Study well this Man-God on the Cross and in the Sacrament of the Eucharist, annihilated so to speak in both of these Mysteries. He will teach you marvelously how to annihilate yourselves, to destroy yourselves, to immolate yourselves for his love: what I beg him with all my heart to teach us effectively until the last moment of our lives.

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LETTER FROM MONSEIGNEUR ANTOINE GIRARD

BISHOP OF POITIERS

WRITTEN TO THE SAME CARMELITE.

You complain, my dear daughter, of external dissipation: pity me then, I who do not breathe, who do not have a moment to myself, and who, by giving myself everything to others, do not yet give them everything. what they ask me. I believe I have more than five hundred letters to answer; and yet since I get up until I go to bed, apart from Holy Mass, the Breviary and meals, I do nothing but respond to what is said to me or to what is writes to me. Flee, my dear daughter, and as disagreeable to God, all the dissipations that obedience will not impose on you: for those which will be inseparable from the employments where it will be judged appropriate to put you, think only of preserving the interior recollection; and when you fail to do so, accuse yourself of it and humiliate yourself, without throwing anything on the charge where one

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put you. They should not withdraw you from Holy Communion, any more than the sadness you sometimes experience. Where will you seek recollection and strength but in Jesus Christ, who is its principle? The consolation you will find there is too good and too salutary to be feared; I pray God to make you find more and more of them there. When you feel a desire to participate in it more often than usual, present it to your Mother with simplicity, and obey with submission what she will order. In the current hold on to this, as to the rest, in the common rule of the Community. I say as much to you about the vocal prayers and the readings: do not miss anything of what is prescribed; and employ what the general rule of the Community and the particular rule of your office leave you of free time, in the exercise of piety for which you will feel the most attraction. In this simple and common life you will surely find the will of God; in a more distinguished conduct you would perhaps find only your self-esteem and the approval of creatures, which you must avoid seeking. Try to concern yourself only with God in your actions; and trying to

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please all your sisters in whom charity must make you respect Jesus Christ, think only of Jesus Christ your divine Spouse, whom alone it is important for you to please. This is what the Old and New Testaments will also teach you. I willingly consent to your reading both, with your Mother's approval, without which you must do nothing. Do not pass a day without reading the New, of which you must learn to hear the Old, of which it is the clarification as well as the fulfillment. I repeat to you for penances what I have told you so many times: perform the commons exactly, especially that of silence, and from time to time explain to your Mother, without haste or importunity, the desire you feel to do so. add others, to do with docility as she sees fit. If you do not become like a child, you will not enter the kingdom of Heaven; and it is by a humble, simple and upright conduct that you will enter that happy childhood which alone is capable of opening Heaven to you. I pray to Almighty God, whom we hope to see there, to complete the conversion of your family, and I rejoice in the hope that the last letter gives you of this mercy.

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of Monsignor your brother. I reply to Mother Prioress and my Sister Susanna. I beg you to thank the Mother Mistress and all your dear Sisters, particularly the Sister of the Child Jesus, for the charity they have in remembering me in their prayers, which I need more than ever. Your dear Sisters of Poitiers, whom I saw yesterday for the first time, despite the extreme desire I had to see them, strongly promised me theirs. You will never be forgotten in mine, my dear daughter, and you must be quite sure of that. I wish I could promise you my letters with the same assurance: it would be rash for me to do so, overwhelmed as I am. So spare me on this as much as you can, and reckon that it will cost me a lot to keep the word you wanted me to give you to write to you once every three months, allowing you to write the same, which it is not possible for me to make more frequent.

Antoine,

Bishop of Poitiers.

FIN.