It wasn’t an easy time for Juana Gratias. Father Palau was back in Ibiza, again exiled for God knows how long. All the beautiful plans they had together were put to rest due to external circumstances. She went back to France to went there for any advance in the case. It must have been terrifying. She put all her trust in Francisco Palau, bonded her life to his, her destiny to his, and now she found herself totally unprotected, alone, uncertain of the future. And whole this situation was affecting her interior life. I can imagine how she would feel: shaken up, confused, paralysed, not knowing what to do, where to direct her steps.

In this circumstances, Francisco Palau takes a pen to remind her of what is the most important in life. Anything that happens around us is here for us to take advantage of it to scale the heaven. The world, with all its power, has no power at all on us, when we have our eyes put steady in the Lord. We are in his hands, he will take care of us, as long as we are determined to take care of Him instead of worrying about our own lives. We only need to worry to conform our will to the will of God. If in everything we are ready to do only His will, there is no need to worry more. All we have left to do is to contemplate, look, see the wounds of His body, of the members of His mystical body that is the Church (God and our neighbour united and inseparable) and offer ourselves to put remedy to the evil that causes those wounds. Of course, the external position, conditions help a lot in achieving this interior peace, but are not necessary to be able to stay at peace, confident in God’s fatherly care for us.

I read this letter of Francisco Palau very often. I live in a place hostile to catholic religion, suspicious of any organized religious activity. We don’t even have the Blessed Sacrament in our community chapel. And yet, the demands of faith are the same for us as for any other Christian: to remain „immovable, unalterable and invariable in the midst of that wheel of spiritual stations to which the soul is subject while living in mortal flesh”. Just take care of me, Lord, as I take care of you here and now, in my brothers and sisters in this far land where you’ve sent me.

41. To Juana Gratias: Gramat (France)

Palma de Mallorca, November 17, 1857

J. M. J.

1. Dearest daughter: Let us go to your spirit. Your march and your flight towards God must always be the primary, principal and essential object of all our correspondence; and neither life nor death nor contradiction nor grace and favor must stop you or paralyse you, and you must begin each day a thousand times and not wait for tomorrow. Spiritual organization and order must be established, fixed and consolidated independently of all material things. And that order must be sustained and preserved (therein lies the miracle), in the midst of an eternal and continuous vicissitude of events, incidents that surround us. It must be immovable, unalterable and invariable in the midst of that wheel of spiritual stations to which the soul is subject while living in mortal flesh. Whatever its outward position may be, whatever turn the outward and the material part may take, all must serve to scale heaven. And you already know what this interior and spiritual order consists of: charity, that is, in uniting oneself with God, conforming oneself to him, and divesting oneself of all that is proper to oneself in order to clothe oneself with God.

2. This union is consolidated in the love of one’s neighbour. Take care of me and I will take care of you. Jesus crucified in his moral body is the object of all the soul’s solicitude and care. Well then, in prayer, see if in you there is an agreement between God and your soul. When you see this agreement, disregard yourself and meditate on the wounds of the moral body of Jesus, and offer yourself as a victim for whatever he wants and demands of you, and in these exercises spend your prayer. The exterior form can and does help the interior in a wonderful way, but the interior and spiritual order does not depend on the good exterior action. Leave this for [when providence will give it and it will be up to me to take advantage of the circumstances that will be offered].

They call me and I am sorry because I would like to extend myself, but I will do so in Ibiza. My care will always be directed principally to this part, as long as I have my head unoccupied.

Farewell.