In our last post for the Year of Faith:
http://visitationspirit.org/2013/01/year-of-faith-st-jane-de-chantal/
we shared about the Foundress of the Visitation Order, St Jane de Chantal’s observations about faith and temptations and her own struggle with them. A very holy soul, nevertheless most of her faith life was lived in dryness, and she experienced her mystical life devoid of visions, for the most part. In fact she had said This is why, though against my inclination, I never wish for sensible devotion. I do not desire it. God is enough for me.
Her spiritual daughter, St Margaret Mary on the other hand, was granted frequent and great revelations and visions of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. In the one of 1675, Jesus revealed His Heart, saying,
“Behold this Heart which has loved everyone so much that it has spared nothing, even to exhausting and consuming itself, in order to testify its love.”
Yet, interestingly, St Margaret Mary’s spiritual advice about faith and temptations is very similar to St Jane’s. This surely indicates that there is stability and wisdom to be sought in one’s life of faith, which is a surer means of grasping God’s Will than a vision.
St. Margaret Mary said in a letter to another Visitandine, Sr. Felice-Madeleine de la Barge, in 1688, in the Moulins Monastery,
“Abandon yourself blindly, full of faith and confidence, to the care of His loving providence. Never turn back. For by taking too much care of yourself will you prevent Him from taking care of you as He wishes.
Without your being aware of it, He will cause you to make more progress in a month than you would ever be able to make in the ordinary way. What have you to fear in away as safe as that of humiliations? The best humiliations are those we do not recognize as such. For humility has this peculiarity: it disappears as soon as one notices it in oneself.
As for the temptations against faith you speak of, all you have to do is try your best to overcome them by contrary acts. Then they will serve to strengthen your faith.
And now my dear friend, must I tell you the one thing that bothers me in all that you write? It is that I do not see enough abandonment and confidence in you, and it is just that, I think that Our good Master asks of you the most. Let Him guide you. Often recall that a child can never perish in the arms of an omnipotent Father.
You must not stop visiting the Blessed Sacrament on account of repugnance you feel on that score. You must offer it to Our Lord in honor of the repugnance He chose to feel in the Garden of Olives. In this way you will frustrate the enemy who is trying to turn you away from doing good.
In the same way, when he incites you to worry and stir up interior storms in you, go to the Sacred Heart and seek your peace there by making acts of love and abandonment, even bothering to pay any attention to what is taking place within you. You must always refuse consent to these things and never worry about anything.
Now I have told you in all simplicity, dearest Sister, the thoughts that have occurred to me here before the picture of the Sacred Heart in answer to what your heart has spoken to me.”
St Margaret Mary was filled with the love of the divine Heart and this love did pour forth in her letter, of course.
But it was her sound suggestions of coping with difficulties in faith which even religious have, that can be a resource for anyone who struggles with faith, temptations and resistance to piety and a holy life.