1608 September 25,  “Serve God where you are” To a priest, on fidelity to one’s calling Letter 480 to Etienne Dunant, priest of Gex, September 25, 1608
1611-1612 “We must remain in the presence of God” To Jane de Chantal, on prayer Letter 838 to Jane de Chantal,
To a pregnant woman, on loving God in her suffering “If you get tired kneeling, sit down”
1604 May 3, “As far as possible, make your devotion attractive” To a married woman, on harmonizing family and devotion Letter 217 to Madame Brulart,



1604 May 3, “As far as possible, make your devotion attractive” To a married woman, on harmonizing family and devotion Letter 217 to Madame Brulart,
Madame,
I cannot give you all at once what I promised, because I do not have sufficient time to put together all that I have to tell you on the subject you want me to explain. I will therefore tell it to you in several letters. Besides the convenience to me, you will have the advantage of having time to ruminate on my advice properly.
You have a great desire for Christian perfection. It is the most generous desire you could have: feed it and make it grow every day. The means of gaining perfection are various according to the variety of vocations: religious, widows, and married persons must all seek after this perfection, but not all by the same means.
For you, Madame, who are married, the means of gaining perfection are to unite yourself closely to God and to your neighbor, and to what belongs to them. The means to unite yourself to God are, chiefly, the use of the sacraments and prayer. As to the use of the sacraments, you should let no month go without receiving Communion. After some time, and under the advice of your spiritual fathers, you will be able to receive Communion more often.
As to confession, I advise you to frequent it even more, especially if you fall into some imperfection by which your conscience is troubled, as often happens at the beginning of the spiritual life. Still, if you have not the opportunity for confession, contrition and repentance will do.
As to prayer, you should apply yourself to it much, and especially to meditation, for which you are, I think, well suited. Make, then, a short hour every day in the morning before going out, or else before the evening meal; and be very careful not to make it either after dinner or after supper, for that would hurt your health.
And to help yourself to do it well, you must previously know the point on which you are to meditate, so that in beginning your prayer you may have your matter ready. For this purpose you may use books by the authors who have treated the points of meditation on the life and death of our Lord, such as Granada, Bellintani, Capiglia, and Bruno. Choose the meditation you wish to make and read it attentively, so as to remember it at the time of prayer, and not to have anything more to do except to recall the points, always following the method that I gave you on Holy Thursday.
Besides this, often make spontaneous prayers to our Lord, at every moment you can, and in all companies, always seeing God in your heart and your heart in God.
Take pleasure in reading Granada’s books on prayer and meditation, for none teach you better, nor with more stirring power. I should like you to let no day pass without giving half an hour to the reading of some spiritual book, for this would serve as a sermon.
These are the chief means to unite yourself closely to God. Those to unite yourself properly with your neighbor are in great number; but I will only mention some of them. We must regard our neighbor in God, who wills that we should love and cherish him. It is the counsel of St. Paul, who orders servants to serve God in their masters and to serve their masters in God. We must exercise ourselves in this love of our neighbor, expressing it externally. And although it may seem at first against our will, we must not give up on that account; our repugnance will at last be conquered by habit and good inclination, which will be produced by repetition of the acts.We must refer our prayers and meditations to this end: for after having prayed to love God, we must always pray to love our neighbor, and especially those to whom our will is not attracted.
I advise you to take care sometimes to visit hospitals, comfort the sick, pity their infirmities, soften your heart toward them, and pray for them, at the same time giving them some
help.
But in all this take particular care that your husband, your servants, and your parents do not suffer by your too long stayings in church, by your too great retirement, or by your failing to care for your household. And do not become, as often happens, manager of others’ affairs, or too contemptuous of conversations in which the rules of devotion are not quite exactly observed. In all this charity must rule and enlighten us, to make us condescend to the wishes of our neighbor in what is not against the commandments of God.
You must not only be devout, and love devotion, but you must make it lovable to everyone.Well, you will render it lovable if you render it useful and agreeable. The sick will love your devotion if they are charitably consoled by it; your family will love it if they find you more careful of their welfare, more gentle in little accidents that happen, more kind in correcting, and so on; your husband, if he sees that as your devotion increases you are more devoted in his regard, and sweet in your love to him; your parents and friends if they perceive in you more generosity, tolerance, and condescension toward their wills, when not against the will of God. In short, you must, as far as possible, make your devotion attractive. . . .
I beg you to give me some part in your prayers and Communions, as I assure you I will give you, all my life, a share in mine, and will be without end, Madame,
Your most affectionate servant in Jesus Christ,
Francis
1608 September 25,  “Serve God where you are” To a priest, on fidelity to one’s calling Letter 480 to Etienne Dunant, priest of Gex,
My very dear confrère,
Pardon me, I beg you, for taking so long to respond to the first letter you ever wrote to me; it will not be so with the others, if I have the consolation of receiving any. But I was so occupied with my departure that I did not have any sort of leisure with which to render to you this duty; and, with that, I placed my hope in your affection, that you would interpret the delay benevolently.
I persist always in telling you that you must serve God where you are and do what you are doing. Not, my dear brother, that I would like to hinder the increase of your good spiritual exercises or the continual purification of your heart; but continue to do what you are doing, and better than you are doing it. Because I know well that God commands all His faithful in the person of Abraham, “Walk before me, and be perfect”; I also know that “blessed are those who walk in the ways” of the Lord, that our fathers walked in them, and that they “resolved to ascend by steps,” so that they might go from “virtue to virtue.”
Therefore have good courage to cultivate this vineyard, contributing your little effort to the spiritual good of the souls that the Lord has reserved for Himself lest they “bend their knees before Baal,” “in the midst of a people that has unclean lips.” Do not be surprised if the fruits do not yet appear, because if you do the work of God patiently, your labor will not be “in vain in the Lord.”
Alas! Sir, God has nourished us with the gentle milk of many consolations so that, having grown up, we might try to help in the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem, whether by carrying stones, or by mixing the mortar, or by hammering. Believe me, remain there where you are; do faithfully everything in good conscience that morally you can do, and you will see that “if you believe, you will see the glory of God.” And if indeed you wish to do well, consider as temptation everything that will be suggested to you regarding changing your place; because as long as your spirit looks elsewhere than where you are, it will never apply itself rightly to profiting from where you are.
Well, know that all this has been said in the confidence that you gave me in your letter, and in the sincere friendship that I bear for you in the bosom of the One whose side was pierced for love of us. I entreat Him that He may strengthen more and more in you the zeal of His honor, and I am with all my heart,
Your humble and very affectionate servant,
Francis
1611-1612 “We must remain in the presence of God” To Jane de Chantal, on prayer Letter 838 to Jane de Chantal,
My dearest child,
Your manner of prayer is good, but be very careful to remain near God in this gentle and quiet attention of heart, and in this sweet slumber in the arms of His holy will, for all this is agreeable to Him.
In praying this way, avoid strenuous efforts to understand, because they hurt you, not only in other matters, but even in prayer; circle around the dear object of your meditation with your affections quite simply, and as gently as you can. Your understanding will surely make some dartings to intrude itself, but you must not busy yourself to keep on your guard against it, for that would form a distraction. But when you perceive it, be satisfied with returning to the simple act of the will.
To keep ourselves in the presence of God and to place ourselves in the presence of God are, in my opinion, two different things. For to place ourselves in this presence it is necessary to recall our minds from every other object and  render it actually attentive to the divine presence, as I say in my book.
But after placing ourselves in the presence of God, we keep ourselves there by making certain acts toward God, either by understanding or by will. We can make these acts by looking at Him or by looking at some other thing for love of Him.We can make them by looking at nothing, and instead by speaking to Him. Lastly, we can make them by neither looking nor speaking, but simply by staying where He has put us, like a statue in its niche.
When there is added to this simple staying some feeling that we belong completely to God, and that He is our all, we must indeed give thanks to His goodness. If a statue that had been placed in a niche in some room could speak and was asked, “Why are you there?” it would say, “Because my master has put me here.”
“Why don’t you move?”
“Because he wants me to remain immovable.”
“What use are you there; what do you gain by being so?”
“It is not for my profit that I am here; it is to serve and obey the will of my master.”
“But you do not see him.”
“No, but he sees me, and takes pleasure in seeing me where he has put me.”
“Would you not like to have movement, so that you could go nearer to him?”
“Certainly not, except when he might command me.”
“Don’t you want anything, then?”
“No; for I am where my master has placed me, and his good pleasure is the unique contentment of my being.”

My God! What a good prayer and a good way to keep in the presence of God, to keep ourselves in His will and His good pleasure! I think that Magdalen was a statue in her niche, when without speaking, without moving, and perhaps without looking at Him, she listened to what our Lord said, seated at His feet. When He spoke she heard; when He paused from speaking, she ceased to listen, and still stayed ever there.
A little child who is on the bosom of its sleeping mother is truly in its good and desirable place, although it says no word to her nor she to it.
My God! How glad I am, my child, to speak a little of these things with you! How happy we are when we will to love our Lord! Let us, then, love Him well. Let us not set ourselves to consider too exactly what we do for His love, provided we know that we will to do nothing but for His love.
For my part, I think we keep ourselves in the presence of God even while sleeping. For we go to sleep in His sight, by His will, and at His pleasure; and He puts us there like statues in a niche. And when we wake we find that He is there near us; He has not moved any more than we; we have then kept in His presence, but with our eyes shut and closed. . . .
Be resolute, dear child; doubt not. God holds you with His hand, and will never leave you. Glory be to Him for ever and ever! Amen.
Francis
“If you get tired kneeling, sit down”
To a pregnant woman, on loving God in her suffering
My dearest daughter,
. . . It is necessary before all things, my daughter, to obtain tranquillity, not because it is the mother of contentment, but because it is the daughter of the love of God and of the resignation of our own will.
The opportunities of practicing it are daily. For contradictions are not wanting wherever we are; and when nobody else makes them, we make them for ourselves. My God! How holy, my dear daughter, and how agreeable to God we should be, if we knew how to use properly the subjects of mortification that our vocation affords! For they are without doubt greater than among religious; the evil is that we do not make use of them as they do.
Be careful to spare yourself in this pregnancy: make no effort to oblige yourself to any kind of exercise, except quite gently. If you get tired kneeling, sit down; if you cannot command attention to pray half an hour, pray only fifteen minutes or even half of that.
I beg you to put yourself in the presence of God, and to suffer your pains before Him. Do not keep yourself from complaining; but this should be to Him, in a filial spirit, as a little child to its mother. For if it is done lovingly, there is no danger in complaining, nor in begging cure, nor in changing place, nor in getting ourselves relieved. But do this with love, and with resignation into the arms of the good will of God. Do not trouble yourself about not making acts of virtue properly; for as I have said, they do not cease to be very good, even if they are made in a languid, heavy, and (as it were) forced manner.
You can only give God what you have, and in this time of affliction you have no other actions. At present, my dear daughter, your Beloved is to you a “bundle of myrrh”; cease not to press Him close to your breast. “My Beloved is mine, and I am His”; ever shall He be in my heart. Isaiah the prophet calls Him the “man of sorrows.” He loves sorrows, and those who have them.
Do not torment yourself to do much, but suffer with love what you have to suffer. God will be gracious to you, Madame, and will give you the grace to arrange this more retired life of which you speak to me. Whether languishing “or living or dying, we are the Lord’s” and nothing, with the help of His grace, will separate us from this holy love. Never shall our heart live, save in Him and for Him; He shall be for ever “the God of our heart.” I will never cease to beg this of Him, nor to be entirely in Him
Your very affectionate servant,
Francis