> [[jpc-abandonment-12|← Previous]] | [[jpc-abandonment-toc|TOC]] # Notes ## Foreword ^1^ *Abandonment*, Book 1, chap. 2, §1 (pp. 42--43). *Back to text.* ^2^ Cf. Book 1, chap. 2, §12 (p. 62). *Back to text.* ^3^ Book 2, chap. 2, §7 (p. 94). *Back to text.* ^4^ Book 2, chap. 4, §4 (p. 115). *Back to text.* ^5^ Book 2, chap. 4, §5 (p. 117). *Back to text.* ^6^ Book 2, chap. 4, §2 (p. 111). *Back to text.* ## Book One ### Chapter One ^1^ It would be a mistaken idea of the meaning of the author to imagine that he would urge anyone to undertake to lead a spiritual life without the guidance of a director. He explains expressly elsewhere that in order to be able to do without a director one must have been habitually and for a long time under direction. Less still does he endeavor to bring into disrepute the means made use of by the Church for the extirpation of vice and the acquisition of virtue. His meaning, of which Christians cannot be too often reminded, is that of all direction the best is that of Divine Providence, and that the most necessary and the most sanctifying of all practices is that of fulfilling faithfully and accepting lovingly whatever this paternal Providence ordains that we should do or suffer. *Back to text.* ## Spiritual Counsels ### Second Book ^1^ NOTE ---This Sister came of a very noble family of Lorraine, and was professed in the Convent of the Visitation, Sister Marie de Nancy, in the year 1666, at the age of 21. Her principal attraction was that of abandonment to Divine Providence. She was perfectly submissive to the will of God by a continual "fiat" for every event, saying on all occasions, "If you, my divine King, my great Monarch, will, or do not will such, or such a thing, that suffices me. May you be praised and blessed for all and in all." Her great confidence in God drew down abundant graces upon her soul. In her last illness she remained always in a state of constant adoration, contrition, faith, confidence and union with Jesus Christ crucified, of love of God, and abandonment to his fatherly goodness, and always wore a look of peace, joy and thanksgiving. Her union with God continuing up to her last breath, she quietly expired of simple weakness at the age of ninety, with all her intellectual faculties unimpaired. (This extract is from the life of this good Sister, by Rev. Mother L. F. de Rosen.) *Back to text.* ### Third Book \* This letter was addressed in 1731 to Sister Marie-Anne Thérèse de Rosen by Fr. de Caussade, and was about a person who was making a retreat. There is every reason to believe that it concerned either Madame or Mademoiselle de Lesen whom God had brought back to himself by the trial of the loss of her property, and who had vowed to become a Religious, but who was obliged to remain in the world for a long time leading a devout life. She made a retreat in 1731 and another in 1732 in the Convent of the Visitation at Nancy, and had Sister Marie-Anne Thérèse de Rosen for her directress. Shortly after she entered the Order of the Annunciation at St. Mihiel in 1733. *Back to text*. ### Fourth Book ^1^ There is reason to think that this letter was addressed by Fr. de Caussade to Sister Marie-Thérèse de Vioménil, who, to enable her holy director to understand her better, had given him an account of her vocation, and of her spiritual state from the time she had embraced the religious life. *Back to text.* ^2^ NOTE: This Postulant is Madame de Lesen, about whom Rev. Mother Marie-Anne-Thérèse de Rosen had consulted Fr. de Caussade, and had undertaken to place in direct communication with him. She entered the Convent of the Annunciation at St. Mihiel. *Back to text.* ^3^ The Religious in question seems to be Sister Anne-Marguerite de la Bellière to whom Fr. de Caussade had written several times. For having taken too much time and pains to prepare a little oratory where she made her Retreat, she became deprived of all that light and consolation that God usually lavished upon her during prayer. *Back to text.* ### Fifth Book ^1^ N.B. Canonized in 1921. *Back to text.* ^2^ The Religious of whom Fr. Caussade speaks here seems to have been the Superior of the Refuge at Nancy, founded by Mme. de Ranfaing.*Back to text.* --- ![[maps/bibliography#^biblio-adp]] > [[jpc-abandonment-12|← Previous]] | [[jpc-abandonment-toc|TOC]]