"Act before God as if everything was lost for you, so that from now on you can say to Him: 'I am content with You alone. My kingdom is in Your Heart and Yours is in mine.'"

In a century of great saints and spiritual masters, Mother Mectilde de Bar (1614-1698), who stood in their number, founded a new Benedictine institute dedicated to the perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. In spite of her labors in establishing or ruling monasteries, she made time for an extensive correspondence with nuns in the cloister and great ladies in the world. The "gems" of this correspondence were carefully kept and copied down for centuries by her congregation. In the twentieth century this treasury began to be edited and published for the benefit of Christians everywhere who seek a more profound union with Jesus Christ in His mysteries, ceaselessly renewed in the Church's worship.

The present volume presents a wide selection of these gems-above all, letters glowing with affection that Mectilde addressed to Marguerite de Lorraine, Duchess of Orléans (1615-1672), whose life was a procession of trials: an unreliable husband, a troublesome stepchild, the death of children, hostility at court, civil strife, chronic ill-health, financial worries. In Mectilde's spiritual advice, Marguerite found light and strength-and so can we, beset with whatever trials we may be facing.