Course XLV -Teaching 7: Correspondence

Eastern Masters take with them their disciples to the mountain, where a rigorous winter an abundant snow impede any relationship with the world.
An Ordained Son must follow his Divine Mother up to the high mountain to break any contact with the world. To forget and to be forgotten.
But many Ordained Sons do not go up to the summit: they remain always in the middle of way to be united eventually and tenuously with the world.
These Sons love and keep mainly in mind their correspondence.
In spite of its eventual need and justification to sustain it, correspondence is always a thread between the world and the Son.
The true progress of a Son in his practice of Renunciation is marked by his interchange of correspondence.
From his entry to the Seminary, a Son learns about the control of his correspondence by himself and by his Superiors, and how to write briefly and little, and how to answer those letters that are indispensable; but even this is not enough.
A soul should not love or rejects the correspondence; in this way this correspondence shall stop almost completely in a spontaneous way.
Since in this sense Superiors are always a little complaisant, this desire of stopping the correspondence must depend exclusively on the Son’s decision.
It is convenient to start soon this important task in order to cut any communication between the Son and the world.
In the Seminary, usually they send only a monthly letter to relatives and acquaintances. But parents and friends, because this case is a novelty and since an isolated life always arouses curiosity, usually write to the utmost, with profuse details, about news at home and surroundings. And it is here that the Son must start his demolition labor.
First, he must read quickly, ignoring superfluous news, just to know the physical condition of his parents and of some very close acquaintance. He must forget and overlook those letters that are merely friendly and informative.
When he has to answer, his letters will be simple, clear and short. He should not comment any case of mere curiosity, and from general news, he should pass quickly to sound advices about the soul and health of his relatives.
Do not be extremely affectionate, curious and long, and like true dead persons to the world, your letters should not arouse interest.
Later, through this simple method, nobody will desire to send you a letter, and shall say what an Ordained Son said to his sister: “I do not write because I have not anything important to communicate”. The world will accede insidiously and gradually to the Community and the consecrated soul if Sons do not follow strictly these rules.
The world also possesses valid reasons and an entire collection of petty intrigues to win his battles of distraction. Today is a letter with news about a disease, and tomorrow other letter with family troubles. Then you can see a very worried and distracted Son who even does not pay attention to his duties. Continuously, he is thinking of what he deems a misfortune and bothers his Superior to send a letter and comfort, advice and orientate.
All this spoils his inner peace and at the same time is an occasion to help really his relatives by means of prayer and internal sacrifice.
A Son should help those people who suffer not by means of letters and written sentences, but through an internal offering of their lives and blood.
Also, there is other harmful correspondence that takes out peace of Ordained Souls: that of “down-loading”.
Every time something goes wrong at home or someone is in bad mood at home, people “down-load” their anger on a person that is absent, by reproaching and insulting him and his vocational life.
A Son must taste these letters and drink their poison drop by drop; and although his heart is transfixed, nothing should transpire externally. These letters should not be answered or considered; rather it is convenient to break definitively with those relatives, because this means that nothing in common can exist with persons whose opinions are so different.
The most dangerous correspondence is insinuating, indirect and flattering.
Some people believe that they can overcome the adamant peace of a consecrated soul by inviting the latter to taste pleasures that they experience in the world.
In correspondences of this kind, sometimes one may read sentences as follows: “In the house of such and such, we had a party like that time, do you know?”; or “Such and such asked about you”, or “Now such and such is married, and such and such is going out with…”. Sentences of this kind clearly denote their double intention of testing the spirit of a Son that renounced to all things, but also want to hurt by remembering what he left.
A relative that sends letters of this kind does not love truly the Son, humanly and spiritually, and the best thing he can do is to break up with this relative.
If his pleasure and will are absent in the correspondence of a Son, this correspondence will stop by itself, like a fire by lack of fuel. He just needs determination and an honest desire of renouncing to live by memories of the world.
Long letters, a lot of news, telegrams and compliments for anniversaries, and obligations with several and certain persons are all bridges to come back to the world.
Sons should send letters just to their parents and briefly; if the latter are sick or disabled, they will write to the closest relative, but always in a simple and informative way.
Certain Sons would want to write spiritual letters. In their view, they could properly guide the souls, and many times a timely post card became a way toward perfection.
Although this is true, this is not Ordained Sons’ mission.
In due course, the Divine Mother will kindle, in those people of pen and talents, an internal fire to write and gain souls through correspondence.
But sometimes, under instruction of their Superiors, the Sons must write spiritual letters. It is then when, under obedience, their correspondence becomes truly spiritual. Now it is not a link with the world, but a fiery arrow that from loneliness crosses the shadow and reaches the very center of the world to illuminate it and to illuminate a chosen soul.
In this case, the Sons must put into these spiritual letters the essence of their spiritual lives, and should not trust as much in the most beautiful correspondence as in that love with which they were made and sent.
At any rate, the most beautiful correspondence of the Son has to be that that he writes to his Divine Mother.
Clean your soul and transform it into a white and immaculate parchment; take the pen of your self-sacrificed will; fill your soul with blood of your sacrifices like a precious inkpot, and write: write there the history of your divine love during every day of your life, until your death.
You will write this last sentence of love: “Usque dum vivam et ultrum”.