Letter XIX.—To Aim at Simplicity.

To Sister Marie-Anne-Thérèse de Rosen. To aim at Simplicity.

My dear Sister,

Only a few days ago I answered at some length your last letter but one. If you find that, through me, God does not do much for you, you ought to conclude that my help is not necessary 157for you, or else that He will Himself provide for your necessities. How well He can do without us when He chooses! One single word uttered by Him to the ear of the soul is more instructive than all the discourses of men. The least little breath of grace wafts our ship more speedily on its course, and makes it arrive more surely and speedily into harbour than all our oars, sails, and sculls. I am delighted to hear that you are beginning to learn this, or rather that you daily have fresh and more touching proofs of it. Keep in this state: the interior silence of respect and submission alone, kept humbly in the presence of God if He does not command us to act, will sanctify our energies, soften our anxieties, and pacify our troubles, and that in one moment. Remain in this state of unity and simplicity; multiplicity throws the mind into trouble and confusion, scatters and disorders our powers without our being able to perceive it. Many desires trouble the soul, says the Holy Spirit. Here is a practice which I advise you to follow in order to reduce all your desires to a single one; take this truth well to heart. “I have been created and put into this world to serve God, to love Him, and to please Him; that is my task here; what does He wish to do with me in this world and the next? to what degree of glory will He raise me? That is for Him to determine; it is His business, it is, so to say, His task; each to his own business, the doing of that is the only thing to think of. Please God I will think of mine as willingly as God thinks of His.” I remain in Him and through Him—my dear Sister. Yours, etc.