and the Third Article
Meditations of Mother Jeanne de Chantal Jouzel
(THIRD ARTICLE)-The Sisters who wish to prosper and make progress in the way of our Lord must at the beginning of all their actions, both interior and exterior, ask for His grace and offer to His divine goodness whatever good they may do, thus preparing themselves to endure with peace and gentleness of mind, all the trouble and mortification they may meet with, as coming from the fatherly hand of our good God and Savior, whose most holy intention as by such means to make them merit, that he may afterwards recompense them with the abundance of his love. This they must not omit, even in little matters, and such as seem to them of small importance, even though employed in things wholly agreeable and conformable to their will and necessity, such as eating, drinking, resting, recreating, and such like. So that according to the counsel of out of the apostle, whatever they do may be done in the name of God and for His sole pleasure.
Third week of Lent here: Third Week of Lent with the Spiritual Directory | Visitation Spirit
Sunday
and mortification
Our holy mother, St Jane de Chantal, has said that there are few souls in religion who receive extraordinary graces because there are few souls who are extraordinarily mortified. I wish to arrive at more than ordinary perfection at all the Perfection of my vocation in the measure that the good God wishes for me and this is certainly a great deal .
I wish therefore to be a mortified soul in the full sense of the word which is far reaching namely, to subject the body and the senses to the spirit .
It is said that the rule of the Visitation is not austere, nevertheless in its mortifications it possesses all that is necessary for destroying nature .Only if I do not know how to endure the blows of the rule I shall not attain my end .Besides the good God continually sends small mortifications; fatigues, sicknesses ,disappointments and so on.
Do I Endure all with love ?do I love to suffer vexation and not have my comforts ?
If I do this I can dare to say that I am enduring the cross of Jesus ,that I am placing my steps in his bloody ones.
If I truly love I shall continually need to give and it is mortification that makes one give of oneself.
Monday
that they may meet with there
In these words are among the most important of the third article for they give an exact idea of the kind of mortification and at the same time of perfection that belongs to the Visitation. Here Liberty is voluntarily and completely abdicated .
The will is captured with the last things it withheld and total abandonment of the Soul becomes the sole occupation and certainly I need not fear to lose by this regime for the paternal hand of the Eternal Father will send me occasions that I would never have known how to find by myself and that will advance the destruction of Self in me much more surely.
The important thing is to be attentive ,to let no opportunity escape and since I do not have to be occupied with searching for means I can have if I wish to Great Liberty of spirit . I can concentrate on the present moment and, adorable mystery, the paternal hand has prepared all.
I seized upon his Divine intention. I Endure and understand his strategies of love.
At the following action I begin over again and so from opportunity to opportunity I shall pass my life in this game of Love which will end rapturously in heaven!
Tuesday
with peace
Our holy founder St Francis De sales said that when everything should be turned upside down he would not lose his peace. This was because he had understood the Divine Game of Love on which I meditated yesterday so that no matter what happened it left him calm. He wished that this peace should be the characteristic of his daughters and here I have arrived at the central point of the third article :when I shall have understood and practiced this peace I shall have made a great step forward in perfection.
Peace is the result of order . I am in order when I take my place of sinful creature to whom suffering is necessary in order to be purified and who instead of becoming troubled by suffering receives it as a means to admitting the abundance of love .
When one has arrived at this point she lives on abandonment and the fruit of Abandonment is peace .
The thought of the paternal hand will help me to progress along this way, this hand which is always calm and which lives and acts peacefully in an eternal tranquility .
Peace is the great means of imitating God and receiving and preserving his grace .It is always in the third article that I find these precious and fruitful lights.
Wednesday
and gentleness
We were instituted in order to imitate the gentleness and humility of the Heart of Jesus. Therefore it is necessary that the fragrance of these two virtues be found again in the third article which accompanies each of my actions.
I have already met humility when treating of the request for Grace which requires a profound conviction of my misery, of endurance of trouble which is above all humiliation and I shall meet it again in the word peace ,for a soul that is peaceful in suffering is by force a humble soul whose self-love has been weakened .
Now let us consider gentleness or sweetness ,this special characteristic of a daughter of Saint Francis de Sales who is at the right school to learn just how far to practice it. It is necessary therefore that each meeting with suffering should provoke in me a movement of gentleness but often until now the contrary was the case and I thought that I was practicing the third article well!
No I had not understood the game of divine love . I did not penetrate the rough skin which hides a fruit of such savour that after having tasted of it at each opportunity I shall necessarily become gentle.
The thing to do is to try.
Thursday
of mind(spirit)
It is not merely exterior gentleness that is demanded of me but gentleness of spirit,that is, the state of calmness and abandon that one possesses on all occasions and which led by the spirit of sweetness arise and effect at producing nothing but sweetness or gentleness of spirit .
Here in order to bring out my point I must return for a moment to the road already covered since the beginning of the third article and what do I see ? the Soul by the request for grace breeds love in order to offer it to the Divine goodness and spend all its activity in the Divine Game of Love which consists in discovering this infinite love in every circumstance .
In truth it is no longer difficult to understand that sweetness should flow from such a manner of acting. It is a way all of love, it is the way of Our Lord whose name is charity and I am no longer astonished that he should choose Visitandines in order to relive again on earth in them his life of Savior .
Of them as of Him when he was at Nazareth it is necessary to say: let us be gentle .
How much progress I must make but I need only let Jesus act by living the third article.
Friday
as coming
It is not a sentimental life that the third article demands of me but a true life of faith ,of that living and active faith that makes the soul breathe in a supernatural atmosphere where nothing is any longer an obstacle. This faith means to believe that God Alone is the Supreme Being and absolute principle or beginning of everything and that all things proceed from him and him alone.
Then one no longer regards secondary causes but always this Divine principle which conducts all things for the greatest good of the Soul to see all things as coming from God and through all things to go to him.
This was one of the greatest maxims of our blessed father, St Francis de Sales, which is one of the sources of his unalterable gentleness. It is necessary that this Maxim become my own and more and more now that I understand his doctrine better.
Behold my soul ! let nothing trouble you any longer here below ;let all things procure gentleness for you . I is God who gives all things ,there is no longer anyone but he and thee in the universe.
All things are instruments that He uses for your benefit but you must not look at them. Behold Him his own self- Him alone nothing can come but from Him.
Saturday
“from the fatherly hand”
It is therefore this sweet Vision that I have been presenting for a long time that appears to me today. This hand,Divine and adorable , which stretches itself toward me like that of a father leading his little child guides me from moment to moment, giving me all that I need.
This vision is also that of the Holy Trinity ,the arm of the paternal Providence, the hand of the savior ,the Divine finger who is the Holy Spirit. The three Divine persons are present occupying themselves with me in the most minute details . Did not Jesus say in the gospel that not a hair of our head should fall without the permission of his Heavenly Father and can I still trouble myself about things?
No it is impossible as long as I shall see this paternal hand near me, and be it the left hand which chastises or the right hand which Embraces me it is always the hand of the Father which is taking care of me .
My father loves me dearly and I am all His . I shall Fix My Eyes Upon This hand and no longer fear anything .I shall Repose in the Divine arms.