Extracts from the Letters of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque

[Shin]

To Sister Felice-Madeleine de la Barge, at Moulins.

(69) From our Convent in Paray, April 8, 1687.

On reading your letter I blessed God, my beloved Sister, for giving you tangible proofs of His true love by leading you along this way of self-effacement. Since He has shown you this way, follow it fearlessly. Then I think you will be doing what He requires of you for establishing His reign in your heart.

I think, He wants to expel from it creatures first and then yourself. That is why you should be glad when you are in any way forgotten or despised. Remember that these things come to you in order that you may banish creatures from your heart, from a heart that must no longer go out to exterior things, but rather cut off affection for them, in order to apply itself without reserve to loving God Who dwells within it.

I think He will give you great graces if only you have the courage to follow Him by an entire forgetfulness of self, abandonment to His providence, and great purity of intention, uniting yourself continually to that of the Sacred Heart of Our Lord, loving with His love and willing with His Will. Finally, choose the Sacred Heart as your sacred oratory where you will offer your prayers and petitions to God, so that they may be pleasing to Him. It seems to me that one of the best means for advancing in perfection is the use of the particular examen on the fault we have resolved to rule out, and on the contrary virtue we wish to aquire. We must mark our faults in a little book so that we can impose on ourselves some penance for them at the end of each day. I beg your pardon, beloved Sister, for taking the liberty of so simply telling you what I think, but I do it because your humility wants it so. It is not that I do not know you are doing more than all that, but I think God wants you to advance more and more in the ways of His pure love, following the inspirations He gives you. Be satisified, though with the occasions He furnishes, be they humiliations or contradictions. Do not seek them but profit by them in silence. This is the wish of your unworthy Sister.

Our dear Sister Cordier presents her most humble respects to your most honored Mother (de Soudeilles) and to yourself my dear Sister, whom she loves very sincerely. As for myself, I beg you to ask of God my true conversion, assuring you that you are not being forgotten in my poor prayers. You will not be angry with me perhaps for sending you this little note (now lost) with an aspiration a pious soul gave us.