TO ST JANE DE CHANTAL
Letter DCCX (Complete Works of St. Francis de Sales)
You will be the first, my very dear and very good mother, who will receive from my writings a letter this new year. Reason certainly wants it, that after paying homage to the heavenly Father and Mother, I also give it back to the only mother that their majesties have given me for this life. Happy New Year to my very dear mother from her son, who wishes her the abundance of the grace of the eternal Father, the peace of the circumcised Son, and the consolation of the Holy Spirit, dedicating with this same heart of my very dear mother as hers to the glory of divine goodness, and dedicating all the moments of this new year to her, to make a whole circumcision of this same heart, and to apply it to receive purely and perfectly the Sacred love that the heavenly and divine name of Jesus announces to us written in His blood on the holy humanity of the Savior.
I cannot promise myself to see you before Wednesday, except from this perpetual sight of which my soul looks and keeps yours dearly in the bottom of our heart. Ah! my God ! my dear mother, that I desire divine love in this heart, that I wish her blessings! Let us kiss the feet of this Savior a thousand times, and let us say to him: My heart, O my God, protests you; my face desires you: Ah! Lord, my face seeks your face That is to say, my very dear mother, let us keep our eyes in Jesus Christ, to consider Him, our mouth to praise Him; and that in the end our whole face only breathes in that of our dear Jesus: Jesus for whom we must be humble, undertake work, suffer and become, as St. Paul says, sheep led to slaughter, when it would please His divine majesty to make us thus for his honor and glory.
Now, a happy and very holy year to my very dear mother, all perfumed with the name of Jesus, all drenched in His Sacred Blood. May no day of this year, as well as no year or no day of several years, that I beg God to give to my very dear mother, happen that it will not be sprinkled with the virtue of this Blood, and will not receive the sweetness of this Name which spreads to the height of all sweetness. Amen. So may this sacred Name fill with pleasant sound the whole Congregation of our Sisters, and the drops of blood of the little Savior become a river of holiness, which rejoices and makes fertile all the hearts of this dear troop, and especially that of my very dear mother, whom mine loves as myself.
Live Jesus! long live his Blood, long live Mary! Long live His side, from which Jesus blood flowed!