JESUS, MARY, JOSEPH, TERESA, XAVERIUS

Though I spoke, in what I said the last year of my noviceship, as if I designed to write no more till I was out of this office of Superior, yet I being bid by my director to continue, I made no reply. My difficulty in this is much lessened, considering the supernatural help I have found, and the peace and repose of mind which I feel constantly whilst I am writing. Nay, my devotion is then even greater than in prayer, and for this reason I begin to-day, being in more anxiety than usual, tired out with a multiplicity of affairs relating to my office of Superior. I chose therefore this half-hour to write, by this to quiet my mind, thinking that St. Xaverius is then particularly near me, by the sensible help I find from him then more than at any other time. Yet I do not remember that I have ever neglected any of my other duties for what I have written, though I should be glad in these spare times when I have sometimes a half-hour, sometimes an hour, to myself, to be in some solitary place. This cannot be done while I am in this employ. Nay, commonly I sit where all the Community may have free access to me; and whilst I have been writing these few lines I have been interrupted by eight or nine of the religious. Yet, though this happens frequently, I cannot say it puts me out in what I have to write. Nevertheless it mortifies me.