wise letters to two nuns

Irish Jesuit Province

Wise Letters to Two NunsSource: The Irish Monthly, Vol. 37, No. 429 (Mar., 1909), pp. 150-153Published by: Irish Jesuit ProvinceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20502583 .

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r 150

WISE LETTERS TO TWO NUNS

IT is a great privilege to be able to suggest useful thoughts to many souls. I think this privilege was mine when, very

many years ago, I put into print in the Irish Messenger of the Sacred Heart, the following letter which I found in a certain

Presentation Convent that lies hidden, utterly unknown to the world, between a great ducal castle and a great ecclesiastical college that is known to all the world. The manuscript purported to be a copy of a letter from a Jesuit Father to a novice in a

Convent of Mercy. Long after it had appeared in the Messenger, Dr. Lynch, Bishop of Kildare, referred to it with warm approval.

MY DEAR SISTER-I had the happiness of being your Spiritual Father for a little while, which gives me a kind of fight to preach at you from time to time-at all events it gives me courage to say a word of advice for this once, now that you are starting on the new life before you.

Well, in the first place, your vocation is settled once and for ever any doubt about it henceforth would be a treason. There is one principle (a simple one too) of theology, which settles all temptations of that kind;

namely, that even if one should enter Religion without a vocation, she practically gets one from the moment she pronounces her Vows.

As to the best manner of acquiring the holiness of your state, I remem ber I entered Religion with very sublime ideas and lofty resolutions, but as time went on, I became convinced, and everything I read, saw, and heard strengthened the conviction, that holiness in religion depends on two very common-place and ordinary things-the first is, great fidelity to the little prayers of every day, never forgiving ourselves the omission

of any of them, and working ourselves into being vexed and indignant with ourselves when we have been wilfully negligent in them. The morning meditation is simply essential. But there is one only plan of succeeding

in that, and it is the obstinate resolution, day after day, of doing our best, however poor our best may be. We should go to it to please God, and not to please ourselves. We should go to it with our minds (and our bodies sometimes) made up for pain, for dryness, and for disgust, and hard weary struggling, and we should welcome facility in making it, as a very agreeable surprise, and a grace for which we are not lookdng, and that we do not at all merit.

Next to meditation, I would put ejaculatory prayer. It is a habit not easily acquired, and in the beginning there will be six days of failure for one of success. But I do not know anything which changes so quickly a careless, timid, selfish Religious into a hero or a heroine, as that same ejaculatory prayer. Above all you will find great profit in aspiratory prayers of love and of perfect contrition. " My God ! if there were no Heaven, and no hell, for Your own beauty and loveliness I love You, and am sorry for my sins," &c. If I had my choice of graces given to

me, I think, after sanctifying grace, I would choose that of which I am speaking.

Now, the second means is scrupulous delicacy in the matter of Charity. Make then, my dear Sister, a resolution, strong as death, never to pain any one of the Community in which you live, in any way. Bear every thing-cross looks, and slighting words, and cold shoulders, and miscon



WISE LETTERS TO TWO NUNS IS 5

structions. Never give word for word, or look for look. Aim at acting outwardly as if you had no feelings, even though inwardly they may be raging and fuming away.

This will sometimes cost nature a hard battle, and look like being wanting in spirit, and will perhaps be called mean-spirited; but the silent

Witness will know better. All this is very hard, I know, but it will not last long, and a look at

the quiet cemetery will give us courage, when we are tired of fighting.

I have no idea who the writer of this was, or to whom it was addressed; but I know these particulars with regard to the following letter which I venture to join with it. It was written to the first novice that entered the Convent of Mercy, Bally shannon, when that colony was sent out from Kinsale in i868. She was called Sarah Duncan in her old Westmeath home, and Sister Mary Catherine in her convent home. The rosary of her religious life was limited to a single decade. She died a holy death in October, I878. Her cousin who writes to her is also dead these many years. He was a priest in New Orleans. A Sister of Mercy, who was a woman of strong sense and great judgment-as I have published her Life, I may mention her name -Mother Baptist of San Francisco, thought this letter worth sending to several convents in which she was interested. Prob ably it was she who gave it to the author of Leaves from the Annals of the Sisters of Mercy, in which excellent work a great part of it is printed, but not all. The good priest signed neither name nor initials, but, doubling back to the top of his first page, he ends abruptly with " Good-bye, Sarah. Pray for me." He little thought that the words he dashed off carelessly would reappear in print forty years later:

ST. JOSEPH'S CHURCH, NEW ORLEANS, LA.,

October T2, i868.

MY VERY DEAR COUSIN SARAH-May our good Lord bless you! I

have received a right good pen-and-ink scolding from your father, my uncle Tom, and in spite of my great pride I am forced to acknowledge that I deserved it. However, as I believe the next best thing after not deserving a scolding is to profit by it, I am going to begin to take better care of myself. The whole cause of the trouble is my not writing to you, not even since you went to be a Sister of Mercy. Uncle seems to think that the offence assumes a greater degree of guilt by being offered to one " consecrated to God." It is bad enough to be accused of laziness,

but really I never thought I was guilty of sacrilege. As I am not much accustomed to writing to nuns, you must not be scandalized at anything I say. My very kind, benevolent, and precocious Sister " Mag " says she has looked in vain for a sensible letter from me since I became a pnest.

Before that I used to write some passibly nice letters she says, but j ust when she expected the real masterpieces of epistolary composition, she finds her self most bitterly disappointed with " short, nonsensical, good-for-nothing scrawls that don't deserve an answer." Erncouraging, isn't it ? Well, you know I don't mind such old maid's talk much, and so the madder she gets, the less and the worse I write. My next letter to her is to be written



I52 THE IRISH MONTHLY

with the handle of a spoon on a piece of brown paper, and if she don't get the fits after that, she probably will never die of delirium tremens or anything of that kind. I wish youc;would write to her; perhaps a Sister of Mercy would have some influence with a Daughter of Charity. As tor me, I am praying for hardness of heart, as I perceive it is the only virtue that can help a poor forlorn fellow like me to get along.

I cannot tell you how glad I am you have become a Sister of Mercy. I like the Order of Mercy very much, and I think it will suit you well. I am only afraid you are not wild enough. It requires considerable life and fun to bear up against hard work, and, especially, if you have to take care of the sick and poor you will have to be very gay and cheerful, or your duties will be only half done. You must stir yourself and be always joyful and cut as many pranks as you can, provided you do not break

your rules (or your neck). These are strange virtues to be recommended to you; in fact they are

partially of my own invention, but I know they are useful in preventing old age, grey hair, and a bad temper. I would also advise you never to sleep more than two-thirds of the time of your morning meditation you might find the position rather uncomfortable. Besides, quietism, ecstasies, visions, and such horrible mortifications as sleeping on one's knees, are not in accordance with the spirit of your state.

It is also a very good thing to give your Mother Superior or Novice Mistress a good long talking-a piece of your mind, once in a while, without getting angry. It is bad for the digestion to keep anything hatching on one's mind; and by telling it to the Superior, and to her only, you strike at the root of the evil; because, as a matter of course, when anything goes against you it is always her fault. If you have any autobiographies to relate to you r director, try to bring them out in a very abridged pocket edition. These holy men are very thick-headed, and cannot remember long stories. For any further direction, consult Rodriguez, St. Francis de Sales, or their agents in your convent.

If your entrance into religion has given you any influence with the One that makes i hroats in heaven, I wish you would try hard to get me a new one. The old one, which was never much good, is completely worn out shouting at . inners. I expect some hard fighting with asthma in the winter as usual, but at present my health is excellent. Don't forget to write often to your dear parents. Say a good fervent prayer for me once in a while. I will think of you often and will pray our Lord to make you a good, fervent, loving, faithful Sister of Mercy, and I won't feel satisfied till I hear that you are bound by the sweet, strong bond of the Holy Vows.

Good-bye, Sarah. Pray for me.

With these letters addressed to young Nuns I will join a relic of an old Nun. A leaflet printed by Carrigan, Tipperary, gives two " Maxims of a Good Religious," which are called " the sound of a voice that is still "-namely, Mother Mary Clare

Moore, foundress of the Convent of Mercy, Limerick, who died August 30, I890:

A good Religious, who is enlightened and guided by Faith, neither desires the good things of this life nor fears its evils: being a disciple of Jesus Christ, she considers that she is obliged to follow her Divine Master and to lead a crucified life. By this unerring light, she sees that there is nothing good but God-nothing amiable but virtue-nothing solid but

what is eternal-nothing heroic but to conquer self-nothing glorious but to be and appear to be a true Religious. Thus she has God always in view, Jesus Christ always in practice, and herself always in sacrifice. She watches continually over her mind, heart, and senses. She abandons



MARY ELIZABETH SLADE 1 53

herself with humility and confidence into the hands of God. That she may enjoy a constant peace of mind, she abandons the past to His Infinite

Mercy, the present to His Love, and the future to His Providence.

* * * * *

The spirit of our Morning Meditation should be like the threads of the web, interwoven in all the duties of the day. After receiving a humiliation, we should be as if we never received one. In the little trials that come to us, let our only concern be to discover what spiritual profit we can gain by them. To one who has acquired the habit of Divine Presence, it is

more difficult to forget God than to remember Hint Involuntary dis tractions may sometimes be mentioned in Confession, not as sins, but with a view of obtaining grace to overcome them. It is well to persevere in forming the same resolution until we have overcome our difficulty in it.

Those who have been interested in the letters given above will thank me for referring to two others of a similar character. One of them was printed at page 5 of our thirty-fourth volume (I906) addressed by Father Henry Rorke to Miss Helen Fottrell

when leaving this world to become a Poor Clare in Newry. At page 222 of the same volume may be found the counsels given by Father Edward Kelly, S.J., to a novice beginning her religious life in the Dominican Convent of Sienna, in Drogheda.

MARY ELIZABETH SLADE

In Memoriam

A HUNDRED years ago there was published in Dublin a Magazine, the name of which I forget, but which bore as

its descriptive subtitle " Asylum of Neglected Biography." Very many neglected biographies have found an asylum in our own pages. In the course of years many names have been recorded here that will be sought for in vain anywhere else. These very generally have one or other of these two qualifications-they were Irish or Catholic, and very often both.

Of the maiden whose name is prefixed to these lines I know nothing but what is told in a little flysheet which tells us that she died in the Hospital of St. John and St. Elizabeth, St. John's

Wood, London, N.W., on Monday, February Io, i908. The eve, therefore, of the first celebration of the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes will be her first anniversary. She died sud

VOL. XXXVIL.-NO 429. II



wise letters to two nuns

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