Extraits des lettres à Mademoiselle de Roannez
The Necessary Violence of Grace
The spiritual life is defined by the painful tension between our natural concupiscence and the upward pull of divine grace.
It's certain that you never detach yourself without pain. As Saint Augustine says, you don't feel the bond when you willingly follow the one who is pulling you along; but when you begin to resist and walk away, you suffer a great deal. The bond stretches and bears all the force, and that bond is our own body, which only breaks at death. Our Lord said that since the coming of John the Baptist—that is, since his coming into each believer—the kingdom of God suffers violence, and the violent take it by force.1 Before you are touched, you have only the weight of your concupiscence, which pulls you toward the earth.2 When God draws you upward, these two opposing pulls create that violence which God alone can make you overcome. But as Saint Leo says, we can do everything with the One without whom we can do nothing. So you have to resolve to endure this war all your life, for there is no peace here. Jesus Christ came to bring the knife, not peace.3
The Peace of the Cross
What appears as a hard conflict to the world is actually the peace of Christ, leading us to desire the end of our earthly struggle.
But still, we have to admit that just as Scripture says human wisdom is only folly before God, so we can say that this war, which seems hard to people, is peace before God—for this is the peace that Jesus Christ also brought. It won't be perfect, though, until the body is destroyed; and that is what makes us long for death, while still bearing life gladly for the love of the one who suffered both life and death for us, and who can give us more good things than we can either ask for or imagine, as Saint Paul says in today's epistle at Mass.4
Read the original Latin
Il est bien assuré qu’on ne se détache jamais sans douleur. On ne sent pas son lien quand on suit volontairement celui qui entraîne, comme dit saint Augustin ; mais quand on commence à résister et à marcher en s’éloignant, on souffre bien ; le lien s’étend et endure toute la violence ; et ce lien est notre propre corps, qui ne se rompt qu’à la mort. Notre-Seigneur a dit que, depuis la venue de Jean-Baptiste, c’est-à-dire depuis son avènement dans chaque fidèle, le royaume de Dieu souffre violence et que les violens le ravissent. Avant que l’on soit touché, on n’a que le poids de sa concupiscence, qui porte à la terre. Quand Dieu attire en haut, ces deux efforts contraires font cette violence que Dieu seul peut faire surmonter. Mais nous pouvons tout, dit saint Léon, avec celui sans lequel nous ne pouvons rien. Il faut donc se résoudre à souffrir cette guerre toute sa vie : car il n’y a point ici de paix. « Jésus-Christ est venu apporter le couteau, et non pas la paix.
» Mais néanmoins il faut avouer que comme l’Écriture dit que la sagesse des hommes n’est que folie devant Dieu, aussi on peut dire que cette guerre qui paroit dure aux hommes est une paix devant Dieu ; car c’est cette paix que Jésus-Christ a aussi apportée. Elle ne sera néanmoins parfaite que quand le corps sera détruit ; et c’est ce qui fait souhaiter la mort, en souffrant néanmoins de bon cœur la vie pour l’amour de celui qui a souffert pour nous et la vie et la mort, et qui peut nous donner plus de biens que nous ne pouvons ni demander ni imaginer, comme dit saint Paul, en l’épitre de la messe d’aujourd’hui.
Notes
- 1 ↩French son in « depuis son avènement dans chaque fidèle » may point either to John the Baptist's interior advent or to Christ's coming into each believer; the translation keeps the pronoun's ambiguity as 'his'.
- 2 ↩Kept 'concupiscence' as the technical Augustinian term for disordered desire rather than flattening it to 'craving' or 'lust'.
- 3 ↩Source has couteau ('knife'), not épée ('sword'); retained Pascal's wording rather than substituting the more familiar English 'sword' from Matt 10:34.
- 4 ↩Elle refers to the peace just named: perfect only when the body is destroyed (death ends the lifelong war).
Lettres à Charlotte de Roannez companion
Rule yourself daily, not just on retreat
Chosen Portion turns the mirror into a daily practice — a short reading and examining question each morning before you lead anyone.
Chosen Portion makes the mirror daily: the ruler-formation questions this collection preserves become a two-minute morning examination in the app.
- A daily formation reading drawn from centuries of counsel to those in authority
- One pointed examination question a day — two minutes, before the meetings start
- Track your practice over weeks and watch the examined life become a habit