2 August 1982
Salzburg, Austria

My dear Mother Rogé, my dear Fathers and my dear Sisters,

When I received the program for these days of celebration, I was very glad to see that you had set apart one day in which you would honor St. Louise. I am very happy that we are honoring St. Louise this morning for two reasons; first, because she is the Co-Foundress of the Company. Because she is, she deserves from us the tribute of honor and thanksgiving. Second, I think it very fitting that we should be honoring her on this occasion when the theme of our celebration is union and collaboration. What was achieved one hundred years ago was principally a growth in union and collaboration. On those two themes St. Louise has much to say to us. In her lifetime she had come to understand the meaning of collaboration. Not only did she understand what collaboration meant, but she lived to see the rich fruits of humble collaboration with others.

There was first her collaboration with St. Vincent. That collaboration extended over a long period of years, beginning with her relationship with St. Vincent as her spiritual director. His clarity of vision which enabled him to see Christ in the poor, and St. Louise's confidence in his practical judgment was a work of collaboration. The fruit of that collaboration was not only the alleviation of the sufferings of the poor but the foundation of the Company to which we belong today. From her collaboration with St. Vincent there was born, too, the friendship between them. It was at once human and reserved, spiritual and practical. It was a friendship that still rejoices our hearts when we read of it in the letters which they wrote to each other. Let me choose just one short extract from a letter of St. Vincent to illustrate that beautiful friendship: "I most humbly thank you for all the care and charity which you exercise towards me, for such good bread, your preserves, your apples, and for what I only now learned that you have just sent me....God knows with what pleasure I receive your gifts; yet also, ever in my mind is the fear that you are depriving yourself of necessities in order to practice charity in this way. In the name of God, do not do it any more." (Coste I, Eng. ed., p. 220).

St. Louise was an artist of collaboration with the Ladies of Charity. She herself moved at ease among the Ladies and was equally at ease with the simple girls whom she gathered about her for service of the poor. She succeeded in achieving excellent collaboration between the Ladies of high society and those simple first Sisters who gave themselves to God for the service of the poor. In her writings and remarks to the Sisters, one comes upon many sentences like this: "I praise God with all my heart for the great peace that exists between you and the Ladies of Charity. There is nothing more powerful to preserve this peace than the respect and humility you must manifest toward them." (Spiritual Writings of Louise de Marillac, ltr. 555, p. 580).

Of her collaboration with those first Sisters who are your predecessors in the company, we have ample testimony in those two conferences at which St. Vincent was present in July 1660 and which were entitled: On the Virtues of Louise de Marillac. The collaboration between St. Louise and those early Sisters must at times have been difficult. Louise was a cultured, highly educated and refined lady. Writing to three Sisters at Nantes, she appeals to Sister Andrée as follows: "...for the love of God, learn how to spell so that I can read your letters easily and answer you as you would wish." (Spiritual Writings of Louise de Marillac, ltr. 566, p. 588). It is an indication of the cultural gap that existed between those with whom St. Louise was working. Yet through her patient collaboration with these Sisters, they served the poor effectively and humbly.