Page 28 - LETTER 1829_1830

taught me; I have done it badly, I know, and what is mine is my
character and mistakes. Now I am handing it over to you,
Reverend Father; I beg you to examine it, and if you do not
find it well-suited to our purpose, throw it in the fire, and God
will provide something better.
I am also sending you the paper with what I have
promised the Lord as the fruit of my Spiritual Exercises. I must
tell you in all simplicity that my heart is truly bent on seeking
every means of using charity with my neighbour. In my
Spiritual Exercises, especially, I felt strongly urged to make out
of it a special vow.
I dared not do it without first obtaining your permission, and so
I now earnestly beg your consent, and at the same time I
request you to teach me how to do it: to shake me out of my
laziness and timidity, to reprove me, to drive me on with sheer
force, in a word: to make me practise this splendid charity in all
ways possible.
The desire of being able to do something for my neighbour is
what represses in me the deep yearning and longing for the
delights of solitude, though I cannot help feeling it strongly
from time to time.
However, in this, as in everything that concerns me, may the

Lord do as it is most pleasing to Him, and I will be glad of it.
What I do desire, and what I earnestly pray for, is that he may
never leave me to myself.
This thought, together with the fear of being myself
contemptible and displeasing in the eyes of my God has long
been troubling me very deeply. I feel I can at any moment fall

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