Spiritual Testament of St. Louise de Marillac
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24 June 1991
St. Louis, Missouri

My dear Friends of Jesus Christ,

In the large community dining room of the Vincentian Mother House in Paris there hang on the end wall of the wooden panelled room two sizeable portraits. One is of St. Vincent and the other of St. Louise. Both were painted in the last century by a Brother of the Community who was endowed with considerable artistic talent. In the portrait of St. Vincent, who then was already more than a hundred years canonized, he is depicted as standing in a warm glow of bright colors, holding in his hand a crucifix on which he is gazing intently. St. Louise is presented as a slight figure, dressed in widow's weeds and without a halo. She sits demurely with a book in her hand and wearing an expression of serenity tinged, however, with a certain sadness. The twin portraits are a study in contrasts: St. Vincent stands as a man of action, St. Louise sits as a woman of patient waiting. Perhaps it is the background of St. Louise's portrait, which is that of a parlor or waiting room, that lends the impression of patient waiting to the entire picture. Let me imaginatively suggest that St. Louise is waiting to be interviewed by a board of men who in seventeenth century Paris are seeking a Director for a number of social projects.

The applicant will be expected to initiate and supervise projects for the care of prisoners, infants of one-parent families, schools for the handicapped and poor, the staffing of hospitals, day centers for the elderly, and residential homes for low income groups. The projects are multiple, but one executive director is being sought. Although it is not explicitly stated, the interviewing board expects that only men will apply. To their surprise a woman comes forward and she is a widow. During the interview she comes across as a quiet and decidedly introspective character. She seems to be excessively absorbed in the welfare of her only child. The panel of interviewers confer. No, she is not the person for the post. To begin with, she is a woman. She would not have the required energy and organizational ability. Besides, how could a woman who seems to be so over-anxious about her only son be capable of transcending herself to be of assistance to the dozens of social workers whose work she will have to supervise, not to mention the hundreds of poor and deprived people with whom she will have indirect, and sometimes direct, contact. The board expresses their regret to the applicant.

You might well ask me when the imaginative interview took place. Let me say shortly after Christmas 1625. It had been a sad Christmas that year for Louise, for only four days before the feast, her husband, Antoine, had died, leaving her with a twelve-year-old son, Michel. She had presented herself for the interview because, although she was assured of a modest income, still she had to think of her son Michel and of his future. Besides, she was aware of her capacity to give service to others. Her husband's illness had been long and debilitating and she had devoted her energies to caring for him. Now there was a void in her life.

In the course of the interview she had been asked what previous experience she had of working in the social services. She had to admit with some embarrassment that she had none. What interests had she, apart from being a wife and mother? She could truthfully say that she liked to do a little portrait painting. Before the death of her father, she had received the benefit of an education in a rather high-class convent school. Her grand aunt, a member of that particular religious community, had tutored her in art and literature. The questioner was surprised when Louise had dropped the word literature, for women generally were not conversant with literature. Rather bashfully Louise explained that she liked to read some of the well-known modern spiritual authors, like Francis de Sales, who had died three years earlier, and the works of Benedict of Canfield, and the Imitation of Christ. "The Imitation of Christ," remarked the interviewer. "So you know Latin?" Louise replied simply that she could read it with a certain facility, and then she was silent.

When she left the room, the interviewing board agreed among themselves that Louise had indeed received an education in the arts and humanities that was rather exceptional for any contemporary woman. They could see that the cast of her mind was more speculative than practical, and that consequently she was not suited for the rough and tumble of life among what the board rather smugly described as the "lower classes." "A tearful widow," remarked one of them patronizingly, "with aspirations to be a mystic."

That she was a tearful widow in the early months of 1626 was evident, but that she had aspirations to be a mystic was a judgment that was not so evident. Her aspirations were to do the Will of God, for the teachers of the school of spirituality which she had frequented stressed over and over again that the fulfillment of the Will of God was the central and indispensable condition of all sanctity. Her aspirations were to sanctity and not to mysticism. Certainly her present confessor and spiritual director, Monsieur Vincent, did not speak of mysticism. Coming from the plains of the Landes district, he was a man who was content to point out to people fields which had rich soil, and then would leave them to open the furrows themselves, according as the Divine Landowner might suggest through His grace and inspiration.

To come back to the St. Lazare portrait of St. Louise and the impression of patient waiting that it communicates, it must be said that it is not the parlor or waiting room background that imparted that gift of patient waiting to St. Louise. The deeply spiritual experience which St. Louise had on Pentecost Sunday 1623 in the Church of St. Nicolas des Champs had at once tranquilized her spirit and schooled her to waiting patiently for the "Kairos" of God's Providence in the future. "I was advised," she wrote years later, "...that a time would come when I would be in a position to make vows of poverty, chastity and obedience and that I would be in a small Community where others would do the same.... I was also assured that God would give me one whom He seemed to show me." (Spiritual Writings of Louise de Marillac, A.2, p. 1).

Ten years were to pass before that design of God was to be realized, and Louise was blessed in having as Director a man who held it as a cardinal principle that one must always walk a pace or two behind the Providence of God on the road of life, and that to overtake Providence on that road was to risk collision with forces beyond one's powers. It was during that ten-year period that Monsieur Vincent, writing to St. Louise, had remarked that: "one beautiful diamond is worth more than a mountain of stones, and one virtuous act of acquiescence and submission is better than an abundance of good works done for others." (Coste I, Eng. ed., ltr. 46, p. 75).

Diamonds are not found on the surface of the ground. Their beauty is hidden in the darkness of the earth. So one could easily understand why an interviewing board in 1626 might have missed perceiving the deeper and more precious qualities of mind and will that lay hidden behind the features and demeanor of the young widow, Louise de Marillac. Had the interview taken place five or six years later, some of the qualities of a diamond would have appeared more easily. The Board would have learned how Louise had, in the course of a little over a year, not only visited but established and organized the Confraternities of Charity in a number of parishes. The journeys she had undertaken and her calm reaction to opposition, which on occasion she had encountered, revealed a diamond-like quality of hardness in her personality that was at once resistant and attractive.

Those years 1630 and 1631 brought Louise into contact with a wide circle of people. There were those passengers in the sometimes uncomfortable coach journeys which she was now taking. Not all of them were as educated and refined as Louise, and as for the coachmen, their language was not always that of the convent at Poissy where she had received a lady's education. There were, too, in the different parochial centers she was now visiting, the Ladies of middle and upper class society whom she was grouping and quietly organizing in the service of the poor. She would patiently explain to them the spiritual and practical directives which the Parisian priest, Monsieur Vincent, had drawn up. Then, there were the sick poor in their homes, some of whom in company with the Ladies, she would visit, suggesting practical advice on how the service could be best offered.

"Would to God," wrote Monsieur Vincent to Louise when she was in the city of Beauvais, "that good Madame de la Croix could follow your advice! It would be worth as much to her as a good religious order would be. As for the drugs, you have done well to deliver them, but your treasurer should not have bought them; she does not realize where that may lead." (Coste I, Eng. ed., ltr. 58, p. 93), and in another letter, "You will be talked about at the St. Benoit meeting. Mademoiselle Tranchot is relating wonders about you. I do think it would be a good idea for you to take the trouble to visit the good woman in order to stabilize her spirit so that she can easily strengthen the others!" (Ibid., p. 96).

This gift of leading others, or rather of collaborating humbly with others and thus unobtrusively helping them to develop their talents of service, must have given Louise a certain sureness of touch when on 29 November 1633 she gathered into her own house a small group of young girls. To these girls, coming in the main from rural France, she would impart a basic spiritual formation that would motivate them to give themselves fully to God for the service of the poor.

The work of forming the village girls in her house was time consuming and might well have given Louise a good excuse for remaining at home. Not so. Her delicate sense of responsibility led her to travel to the various parochial centers throughout France, where the Sisters had been placed. The little communities needed consolidation. Much could be done by letter, but her meditations on the Incarnation led her to appreciate the value of personal presence among those whom she wished to confirm in their vocation of serving Christ in the poor. What modern executives and personnel managers are now discovering about the importance of personal contact with employees, if the efficiency of a firm is to be improved, Louise de Marillac had adopted as normal practice more than three centuries ago. She could have enlightened and astounded our imaginary board of interviewers with her insights, but then they did not pose the question to her because it was beyond the horizons of their minds.

Travelling was costly for Louise, not so much in financial terms as in the expenditure of physical energy. On the 2 February 1640 Louise took the coach from the city of Angers to Paris. It would be several days before she would reach Paris. She had already spent three months in Angers, where she had been negotiating the terms of a contract with the secular administrators of the hospital there. Only the day previously she had signed the contract according to which the Daughters of Charity would undertake the nursing of the sick poor in the hospital. It was winter time, and throughout the weeks she had spent in Angers, Louise's health had caused some concern. Back in Paris Monsieur Vincent was aware of the fact and somewhat worried about the effect which the rigors of the return journey would have on Louise's health. Monsieur Vincent contemplated hiring a special coach in Paris and sending it to Angers or, if not, he suggested that Mademoiselle should travel "Business Class." Three letters within ten days touched on the matter. He wrote:

"With regard to your return, I ask you to let it be as soon as possible. Hire a stretcher and rent two good strong horses. I would have sent you a litter, but I do not know which you need, a litter or a stretcher. I entreat you, Mademoiselle, to spare nothing and, whatever it may cost, to get what will be the most comfortable for you." (Coste II, Eng. ed., ltr. 420, pp. 11-12). Six days later he writes again: "If you take a stretcher, as I wrote you to do, because the coach, especially on the cobblestones, from Orleans to Paris would be too hard on you, it will suffice to have one Sister with you. You can have the others come by water as far as Tours and by coach from there to here." (Ibid., p. 12). Three days later the subject is raised again: "But what are you saying about coming back by water, Mademoiselle! O Jesus! You must do no such thing! Please have a stretcher hired and rent or, rather, buy two good horses--we will pay here what they cost--and come home that way." (Ibid., p. 15).

The Sisters at Angers might well have offered themselves to our Board of Interviewers as guarantors of Louise's ability to formulate clearly the theory and practice of good interpersonal relations. Four years after her return to Paris in 1644 she wrote to the Sisters there: "If our Sister is depressed or forlorn, if she is too quick or too slow, what in the world do you expect her to do about it? This is part of her character. Although she often tries to overcome herself, nevertheless, she cannot prevent these inclinations from frequently appearing. And should her Sister, who is supposed to love her as herself, become annoyed with her, be rude to her or frown upon her? O my dear Sisters, be on your guard against acting like this. Instead, pretend that you do not notice it and do not criticize her, bearing in mind that it will soon be your turn when you will want her to act this way toward you." (Spiritual Writings of Louise de Marillac, ltr. 104B, p. 114).

It is not surprising that a woman with such penetrating psychological powers should have had a facility of collaborating easily with others. It can be said that one of Louise's outstanding gifts was precisely that of collaboration. She would undoubtedly put forward Monsieur Vincent as her great collaborator in her projects for the needy, the destitute and the sick poor of her day. To collaborate with one of Monsieur Vincent's intellectual caliber and sensitive compassion, not to mention his holiness, may not have been difficult. Clearly Louise had complete confidence in his judgment on spiritual as well as on administrative and temporal matters. What, perhaps, may easily escape observation are Louise's powers of thinking independently of Monsieur Vincent and of taking on occasion a longer view of a question. Such independence of thought served to complement and enhance the collaboration between the two Saints.

Two incidents will suffice to illustrate the point. First, the project for the care of the foundlings at Bicêtre. It would seem that Louise saw more clearly than either Monsieur Vincent or the Ladies of Charity the impracticality of placing the foundlings in a large rambling castle which had been long vacant and which in Louise's words had become "the haunt by day and by night of all sorts of evil persons," (Coste II, Eng. ed., ltr. 770, p. 596)

and which would entail enormous expense to make it properly habitable. (cf. Ibid., p. 597). Louise's letter to Monsieur Vincent on this occasion sets out clearly and compellingly the reasons for not acquiring the castle. Either Monsieur Vincent or the Ladies did not see the force of her arguments; the Ladies pressed ahead and the transfer of the foundlings was made, a move which was later recognized to have been a very costly mistake. One happy consequence, however, of the mistake was that it provided Monsieur Vincent with the occasion of making, after being strongly prompted by Louise, one of his most moving appeals to the Ladies of Charity. He begged them to give generously and without counting the cost, so that the lives of the foundlings might be saved. (11).

A second example of Louise's tenacious independence of judgment can be seen in her determination to have the Company of the Daughters of Charity placed under the authority of Monsieur Vincent and his successors, rather than under that of the local Bishops. Louise saw this arrangement as the best means of assuring unity of spirit and of direction in the Company. What was her dismay, then, when in November 1646 Monsieur Vincent seemed to acquiesce meekly in the decision of the Archbishop of Paris that the Company be subject to him. Almost nine years would pass before Louise would secure what she had long desired, prayed and worked for. It was on the 18 January 1655 that Cardinal de Retz, Archbishop of Paris, signed the document committing to his "dear and beloved Vincent de Paul...the care and guidance of the aforesaid Society and Confraternity, during his life and after him to his general successors of the Said Congregation of the Mission." (La Compagnie des Filles de la Charité: Documents, pp. 676-678, ed. Sr. Elisabeth Charpy, Paris 1989).

Louise's ability to collaborate with people was a grace she shared with others. Barbe Angiboust at Fontainbleau is offered some advice on how she should relate with the Queen, (cf. Spiritual Writings of Louise de Marillac, ltr. 435, p. 189), while Julienne Loret is counselled on how she might cope with a difficult pastor of Jansenist leanings (cf. Ibid., ltr.302, p. 349). Perhaps the most delicate tribute of all to Louise's powers of collaboration was something that happened a few hours after her death on 15 March 1660. She had expressed a wish in her Testament to Monsieur Vincent that she be buried close to the Priests of the Mission (La Compagnie des Filles de la Charité: Documents, p. 997). He agreed, but her wish was set aside when the pastor and people of the parish of St. Laurent, where she had lived and where she was known and loved, expressed their strong desire that her remains be interred in their parish church. And so it was done, a deft finishing touch to the portrait of one who was an artist of collaboration.

The spiritual gifts of Louise de Marillac were many and neither a portrait in oils nor the probing questions of an interviewing board could fully reveal them to us. "No one comprehends what is truly God's," wrote St. Paul, "except the Spirit of God." (1 Cor 2:11). A remarkable feature of Louise's pilgrimage to God is that, as she advanced along the way, she became more aware of the guiding presence of the Spirit of

God in her own life and in that of the Company. The feast of Pentecost became for St. Louise a significant landmark in her pilgrimage. It was on Pentecost Sunday, the 4 June 1623, that she emerged from a dark night of spiritual purification. Twenty-one years later on the eve of Pentecost 1644, she and a sizeable group of Ladies of Charity were providentially saved from death or serious injury when the floor of a room, where they should have been present but were not, collapsed. The coincidence of that event with the vigil of Pentecost was not lost on Louise. In a new way she became conscious of the overshadowing and protective wings of Him Who is traditionally represented by a white dove.

It was, however, in the final decade of her life that her sensitivity to the presence and role of the Holy Spirit was most marked. The Spirit of God in the thought of Louise was the prolongation of the presence and action of Christ in the Church. One must, following the spirit of the final injunction of Christ, keep oneself, as did Mary and the first disciples, in a continual state of readiness for a fresh descent of the Holy Spirit. Such an attitude calls for a total and trustful surrender to the designs of God as they unfold themselves in the pattern of each day's events. "Souls that are truly poor and desirous of serving God should place their trust in the coming of the Holy Spirit within them believing that, finding no resistance in them, He will give them the disposition necessary to accomplish the holy Will of God which should be their only preoccupation." (Spiritual Writings of Louise de Marillac, A.25, p. 802).

A charming portrait of the spiritual gifts of Louise emerges from the reflections which Monsieur Vincent, along with the Sisters of the Mother House, made on two days during July 1660. Let us eavesdrop for a moment on what is being said by the Sisters gathered around the now aged and fragile Vincent in the Community Room of the Sisters' Mother House:

Father, I noticed that she was most careful and ardently desired that the Company should preserve the spirit of poverty and humility and often used to say, 'We are the servants of the poor; therefore, we should be poorer than they.'.... 'Your remark about her, Sister, is in my opinion most true, when you tell us that she loved poverty greatly. You saw how she was dressed, clad in the poorest fashion, and she loved this virtue so much that she asked me long ago that she might live as a poor woman. She always urged that the Company should preserve this spirit which is certainly a sovereign means for its preservation.'"....'And you, Sister?' 'Father, I remarked that her letters were written in a very humble style.... She had great charity for the Sisters and was afraid of annoying them. She did her best not to displease anyone and always excused the absent. This did not prevent her from correcting faults, but she always did so most skillfully and patiently. She always urged us to take great care of the poor and looked on whatever was done for them as done to herself. She often advised us in her letters to observe the rule and to live in great union with one another.''And you, my Daughter?' 'I have noticed, Father, all that our Sisters have said is quite true. Moreover, she had the patience of a saint, great charity and wonderful humility.'Ah! Sisters, exclaims St. Vincent, what a picture does God place before your eyes and painted by yourselves! Yes, it is a picture which we possess and which we should regard as a prototype that should animate us to do likewise, to acquire her humility, charity, forbearance, firmness in all her government, and that should also animate us to remember how in all her actions she tended to conform them to those of Our Lord.... This, Sisters, then, is a picture which you should gaze on, a picture of humility, charity, meekness, patience in infirmities. Behold what a picture! And how are you to make use of it, my dear Sisters? By striving to form your life on hers....'A beautiful picture, O my God! This humility, faith, prudence, sound judgment and always an anxiety to conform all her actions to those of Our Lord.' (Conf. Eng. ed., 3 and 24 July 1660, pp. 1258-1281).

Perhaps it would be timely to commission another artist to present our Mother House in Paris with a new portrait of St. Louise.

A double title was suggested to me for this talk: "The Gifts of St. Louise. The Future of the Legacy." I must confess to have been puzzled by the second title and to have been at a loss about what I should say about the future of the legacy. Moreover, I experienced a certain reluctance to don the prophet's mantle and would prefer instead to heed Thornton Wilder's dictum that "the future is the most expensive luxury in the world." Perhaps I should plead my poverty at this point and bow out.

I hope that you will excuse me if what I have to say about the future of the legacy is more in the nature of a simple postscript to what I have presented, rather than a full treatment of the topic. That we have received a spiritually rich legacy from St. Louise is certain. Perhaps we have not been fully aware of the size and value of that legacy she has left us. More than three centuries have passed since St. Louise died, and perhaps it is only in this decade, and more particularly during this year, that the Vincentian Family is discovering fully the gold of spirituality that St. Louise has left us as a legacy.

Let us listen to her spiritual Testament: "My dear Sisters, I continue to ask God for His blessings for you and pray that He will grant you the grace to persevere in your vocation in order to serve Him in the manner He asks of you. Take good care of the service of the poor. Above all, live together in great union and cordiality, loving one another in imitation of the union and life of Our Lord. Pray earnestly to the Blessed Virgin, that she may be your only Mother."

This spiritual Testament was recorded by the Sisters who attended St. Louise during her final illness. We are indebted for this text to Don Nicolas Gobillon who in 1676 wrote the first biography of St. Louise. The Testament of St. Louise is more than a testament. It could be said to be a succinct spiritual autobiography and a summary of the principal themes on which she spoke and wrote to the Sisters during the almost three decades she guided the Company.

"... To serve Him in the manner He asks you." Discovering the Will of God moment by moment and a faithful and loving fulfillment of it was the pivot around which all St. Louise's actions turned. "Courage then, my dear Sisters," she had written in June 1642. "Seek only to please God by faithfully observing His commandments and evangelical counsels...." (Spiritual Writings of Louise de Marillac, ltr. 441, p. 75).

"Take good care of the poor...." It was a counsel that St. Louise had lived herself. "I have seen her," remarked a Sister after her death, "gathering poor people round her who were coming out of prison; she washed their feet, dressed their sores and took great pleasure in serving them." (Conf. Eng. ed., 3 July 1660, p. 1259).

"Above all, live together in great union and cordiality...." In the vision of St. Louise, the Sisters were to warm themselves at the fire of mutual charity within the Community before going out to offer a spark of that fire of love to the poor through their services of caring, teaching, supporting and comforting. All that humble and loving service was to be inspired by the example of Christ with whom they should remain intensely united at all times.

"Pray earnestly to the Blessed Virgin that she may be your only Mother." The phrase, "only Mother," had been used on a number of occasions by St. Louise before she uttered it in her final testament. St. Louise, who had not known her natural mother, had clearly found a mother in the Immaculate Virgin Mother of God. St. Louise wished that the Sisters would experience something of that love and tenderness which she over seven decades of her life had found in Mary, "the only Mother."

The biographer, Gobillon, records that after St. Louise had left her testament to her Sisters, she said that "if I were to live a hundred years, I would make the same recommendations to you." (Gobillon, La Vie de Mme Le Gras, Paris, 1676, p. 175). Thus we, who this year commemorate the four hundredth year of her birth, have from St. Louise herself a firm assurance that her Testament is still valid today, and indeed for the future, for:

"Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past." (T.S. Eliot "Burnt Norton" in Four Quartets).

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