Letters of Saint Therese Couderc

1. Brief quotations

These are excerpts taken from the letters of the Cenacle's Mother Therese.  Our hope is to have the complete letters online before long.

CONFIDENCE IN THE GOODNESS OF GOD'S WILL

The best plan, it seems to me, would therefore be to wait a little longer, but to wait with patience, with sweetness, with peace; the Lord's times are not always our times, it is true, but what does it matter so long as we are doing His will. At such times, we may say with Our Lord in the garden of olives: Let not my will be done, but Thine. Now the will of God manifests itself by the events He ordains or permits; let us adore His designs and submit to them with love, persuaded that all will be for our greater good.

Letter to her nephew, Abbe Leon Couderc,
Lyon, January 15, 1881

 . . not my will be done, but His. This is my prayer of preference which I mean to make every day so long as the breath of life is left to me, because it is the one which gives me and leaves with me the greatest peace of soul.

Letter to Mother Marie Aimée Lautier,
Lyon, October 16, 1881

THE CROSS

The Cross in any form is always the tree of life and the hope which faith gives us of gathering its fruits of life reanimates our courage in accepting it in all its rigors from the hand of Our Lord, who has Himself chosen that which will serve our sanctification most efficaciously.

Letter to M Dambuent,
Fourviere, December 20, 1867

... I knew that I could say nothing and do nothing to arrest your pain or even sweeten it. So then I confined myself to imploring the divine Consoler who knows an about it, to do by Himself what others cannot. He alone possesses remedies for all ills, consolations for all troubles. It is He who gives the cross and it is He also who teaches and helps us to bear it.

Letter to M de Larochenegly,
Lyon, June 15, 1878

The Cross in any form is always the tree of life and the hope which faith gives us of gathering its fruits of life reanimates our courage in accepting it in all its rigors from the hand of Our Lord, who has Himself chosen that which will serve our sanctification most efficaciously.

Letter to M Dambuent,
Fourviere, December 20, 1867