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Letter of St. Mary
Magdalen de' Pazzi to Cardinal Alessandro de' Medici, Archbishop of Florence |
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 This is the third and final letter Sr. Mary Magdalen wrote to the Cardinal Archbishop of Florence and future pope, Alessandro de' Medici. Twenty-five days later, on the occasion of the elections for the new prioress, the Cardinal visited the Carmelite monastery. Sr. Mary Magdalen was able to speak with him despite the impediments of her superiors.
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(...) Please be willing, my most dear Father-- to call you by the sweetest name that may be permitted me-- to leave yourself for God, just as the Word left Himself for us, by entering upon His passion and submitting His humanity to the will and pleasure of His Father. And just as He gave Himself to us, leaving Himself in the Most Holy Sacrament as the nourishment and food of our souls, so may you also be willing to give yourself to creatures! | ||
| You will also give yourself to creatures just as sweet Truth did on this night. And though you cannot give yourself as food as Truth did, you will give what God has given to you for your nourishment and for the nourishment of the creatures subject to you, namely, your temporal goods and subtance! (...) | |||
| You will leave yourself to creatures also in this other way: by not failing in word and example to nourish your subjects, given to you in custody, and doing this with that wisdom and prudence that God will infuse into you. And, if you will continue to consider well and to meditate on those words that continue to consider well and to meditate on those words that Truth, old and new, spoke, to wit, that He would be with us until the consummation of the world, you will not hesitate to leave aside a certain custom or acquired habit, which is somewhat difficult to do. | |||
| So too you [will not give thought] to the difficulty you will meet in resisting the temptations that the enemy may present to you. Neither will you listen to the tongues of the creatures assisting you, who, often moved by charity-- though it is, in truth, not charity, no; but so they pretend-- who may speak words to you that could hinder this work and will of God. (...) | |||
| (...) Rather, you will want to give your body over to every kind of death in order to see the will of God fulfilled, and so you will be able to say with the enamored Paul "The world is crucified to me, and I to the world" [Gal 6:14]. | |||
| (...) My mind will not be able to believe, nor is it capable of believing, that my Most Reverend Father loves his neighbor, if he can watch his neighbor slipping on the precipice of sins and walking, so to speak, along the way to hell. Neither can my affection be satisfied that he loves his neighbor, when he takes no account of seeing so many souls continuing to take refuge in the vanities and in the transitory and decaying things of this miserable world in such a way that they deprive themselves of God. Nor can my will, mean and miserable though I am, accept the idea that he loves , when he goes on dissimulating [the fact] that the other christs, and promises and vows made to God and convincing themselves [even though in their heart they know it is not so] that God is content merely with the promises made, without their observance. Neither can I believe that he appreciates the price of the blood that the slain Lamb has shed, when he allows the souls redeemed and adorned by this most precious blood to go running so precipitously to hell. (...) | |||
| (...) After you will have considered so many sweet words of the Turth, old and new, and tasted the many pleasant fruits of the loving garden of Holy Scripture, you ought to look with fixed eye-- as I said in the beginning-- upon the Lamb slain on the cross, and with an eager desire to follow in imitation of Him! Then you will see whether He esteemed His honor; for He willed to die the most opprobrious death that can be imagined. | |||
| (...) Consequently, His example will be a constant spur to you to put away, in imitation of Him, all self-love by depriving yourself of the substance that God has given to you, in order to relieve the needs and wants of the creatures subject to you, by not esteeming even your personal honor, in order to help reunite the members who have become estranged from their true Head, Christ crucified, and especially those men and women who are consecrated to Him. | |||
| (...) So too must you, through the seven Sacraments, persuade people to love God and bring fulfillment to the renewal of observant living on the part of religious, and to the pleasing will of God. And just as the Word, what that word "Sitio" [I thirst - Jn 19:28] showed the thirst that He had for our souls, so must you, with the sacrament of His body and blood, of which you hold the keys in such abundance, show the thirst that we are to have for God. And what can better satisfy and remove the thirst of our soul than than this Most Holy Sacrament? With this sacrament you must also remove the thirst of your subjects for these transitory things here below, by showing them the preciousness of the body and blood of Jesus Christ and by persuading souls to live in such a way that you can remain tranquil in spirit because they are not receiving It unworthily, as it may happen that some do. | |||
| Please do, please do be willing to learn the power and the price of this blood and to give this knowledge to others! (...) Moreover, do not let yourself be outdone by a lowly animal such as the pelican, which with its beak opens its breast and with its own blood feeds and nourishes its offspring! I do not invite you to give your own blood; but, yes, indeed to make known the price of the blood of the slain Lamb and to see to it that it be not disparaged. | |||
| From our
monastery of Saint Mary of the Angels near Saint Fredian's, September 4,
1586. The humble
handmaid of the Word Made Flesh |
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| from: La rinnovazione della Chiesa Lettere dettate in estasi Cittą Nuova - Edizioni O.C.D. © 1986 ISBN 88-311-4804-4 |
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