Souffrir persecucion et prospérité
Receiving All Things with Gratitude
The reader is encouraged to accept both suffering and prosperity as gifts from God while seeking wise counsel for inner burdens.
Dear daughter, if you meet with any trial of illness, or anything else for which you can't properly find a remedy, then bear it willingly, and for that give thanks to Our Lord and be grateful to Him for it; for you should believe that He does this for your good, and you should believe that you've deserved this and more, if He so willed, because you've loved Him little and served Him little, and done many things against His will. And if you have any prosperity of bodily health, or any other good fortune, thank Our Lord humbly and be grateful to Him for it; and take care that you don't grow worse from it through pride or any other vice, for it is a very great sin to make war on Our Lord by reason of His gifts.✦12 If you have any tribulation of the heart, and it's the kind you can and should tell your confessor, tell him—or tell another person you believe is trustworthy and will keep it well concealed—so that you may bear your tribulation and endure it more in peace.3
Read the original Latin
Chiere fille, se vos avez aucune persecucion de maladie, où autre chose en laquele vous ne puissiez mètre conseil en bonne manière, soufrez la donques de bonne volenté, et rendez pour ce grâces a Nostre-Seigneur et len sachiez bon gré; car vos devez croire que il fet ce pour vostre bien, et devez croire que vos avez ce deservi et plus, se il voloit, pource que vos lavez pou amé et pou servi, et fet mout de choses contreres a sa volenté: et se vos avez aucune prospérité de santé de cors, ou autre, regraciez Nostre-Seigneur humblement et li sachiez de ce bon gré; et gardez que vous nempiriez pas de ce par orgueil ne par autre vice; car cest mout grant pechié que fere guerre a Nostre-Seigneur par lachoison de ses dons. Se vous avez aucune tribulacion de cuer, se ele est tele que vos la puissiez et doiez dire a vostre confesseur, dites li, ou a autre persone que vos créez qui soit loiale et qui vos doie bien celer, porce que vos portez votre tribulacion et soustiegniez plus en pès.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Job.1.21 — And he said, 'Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will return there. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.'
Notes
- 1 ↩OF persecucion here means affliction/trial (illness and the like), not only hostile persecution; rendered as "trial" to match the chapter's pairing of hardship with prosperity.
- 2 ↩mètre conseil en bonne manière = apply a remedy / find counsel in a fitting way; rendered as "properly find a remedy."
- 3 ↩porce que with subjunctive soustiegniez read as purpose ("so that"), not mere cause: disclosure is so she may bear the trouble more peacefully.
Teachings to His Daughter Isabelle 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