165 Love believes all things to which you may feel inclined. Remember this simple truth which is beyond all doubt: God allows many difficulties to beset those who want to serve him but he never lets them sink beneath the burden as long as they trust in him. This, in a few words, is a complete summary of what you most need: never under any pretext whatsoever to yield to the temptation of discouragement, not even on the plausible pretext of humility. Humility…may refuse office but it does not persist stubbornly in its refusal; and being employed by those in power, it does not enter into any further argument about its worthiness, but believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things, as does charity; it is always simple. Holy humility is the great partner of obedience, and in the same way as it never presumes to think itself capable of anything whatever, it always believes obedience capable of everything; and as true simplicity humbly refuses office, so true humility simply does what it is told. SAINT FRANCIS DE SALES († 1622) was a great figure of the 17th century rebirth of Catholic mystical life. He is a Doctor of the Church.
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