From Mother Jacqueline: On Serving God in the World

Dear all,

This meditation written to Madame de Chantal when she was in the world is so beautiful and so encouraging! I send it to you with all my heart.  --Mother Jacqueline

(From a book of daily meditations from the words of St. Francis de Sales)

As long as it is the will of God that you should remain in the world, stay there cheerfully and contentedly. There are many who quit the world; but in doing so, fail to quit themselves, having really left it only to gratify their own satisfaction.

Let us quit the world in order to serve God, to follow Him, to love Him; and if this be our aim, so long as God wills that we should serve Him, follow Him, and love Him in the world, we should cheerfully remain there; for since it is only His holy service that we desire, wherever we can serve Him we ought to be satisfied.

Abide in peace, my daughter; remain in the world cheerfully, and do well all that your position requires of you; believing that God will be better pleased with this than with a hundred withdrawals from the world, made by self-will and self-love.

Some time ago I met a young girl carrying a pail of water on her head, in the middle of which she had put a piece of wood; I wondered why she had done so, and she told me it was to keep the water steady so that it might not overflow. I thought to myself how this is just what we ought to do with the Cross of our Lord; so that in and by this wood our affections might be kept steadfast, and not pour themselves out in troubling and disquieting thoughts.