Christian Counsel

Christian Counsel

François Fénelon
Thirty-one counsels and forty spiritual letters from the Archbishop of Cambrai, one of the great spiritual directors of the Christian tradition. Fénelon writes on prayer, self-abandonment, humility, the proper use of crosses, and the interior operations of God in the soul — always returning to his central theme: that our deepest need is not more effort but more surrender, not more knowledge but more love.

Source: ccel.org · Modernized for readability

✦ Table of Contents · 71 Chapters
1 Of the Little Knowledge of God There is in the World → 2 Of the Necessity of Knowing and Loving God → 3 On Pure Love → 4 On Prayer and the Principal Exercises of Piety → 5 On Conformity to the Life of Jesus Christ → 6 On Humility → 7 On Prayer → 8 On Meditation → 9 On Mortification → 10 On Self-abandonment → 11 On Temptations → 12 On Wandering Thoughts and Dejection → 13 On Confidence in God → 14 In What Manner We Are to Watch Ourselves → 15 On the Inward Teaching of the Spirit of God → 16 On Daily Faults and the Toleration of Ourselves → 17 On Fidelity in Small Matters → 18 On Transitory Emotions, Fidelity, and Simplicity → 19 On the Advantages of Silence and Recollection → 20 Privation and Annihilation, a Terror Even to the Spiritually-minded → 21 On the Proper Use of Crosses → 22 On the Interior Operations of God to Bring Man to the True End of His Creation → 23 On Christian Perfection → 24 The Way of Naked Faith and Pure Love is Better and More Certain than that of Illuminations and Sensible Delights → 25 On the Presence of God → 26 On Conformity to the Will of God → 27 General Directions for Attaining Inward Peace → 28 Pure Love Only Can Suffer Aright and Love its Sufferings → 29 Interested and Disinterested Love Have Each its Appropriate Season → 30 On True Liberty → 31 On the Employment of Time → 32 Letter 1: The advantage of humiliation → 33 Letter 2: How to bear suffering so as to preserve our peace → 34 Letter 3: The beauty of the cross → 35 Letter 4: The death of self → 36 Letter 5: Peace lies in simplicity and obedience → 37 Letter 6: The true source of peace is in the surrender of the will → 38 Letter 7: True good is only reached by abandonment → 39 Letter 8: Knowledge puffeth up; charity edifieth → 40 Letter 9: We are not to choose the manner in which our blessings shall be bestowed → 41 Letter 10: The discovery and death of self → 42 Letter 11: The sight of our imperfections should not take away our peace → 43 Letter 12: Living by the cross and by faith → 44 Letter 13: Despair at our imperfection is a greater obstacle than the imperfection itself → 45 Letter 14: Pure faith sees God alone → 46 Letter 15: Our knowledge stands in the way of our becoming wise → 47 Letter 16: Those who endeavor to injure us are to be loved and welcomed as the hand of God → 48 Letter 17: Quietness in God our true resource → 49 Letter 18: True friendships are founded only in God → 50 Letter 19: The cross a source of our pleasure → 51 Letter 20: The absence of feeling and the revelation of self no sufficient causes of distress → 52 Letter 21: The imperfection of others to be borne in love → 53 Letter 22: The fear of death not taken away by our own courage, but by the grace of God → 54 Letter 23: Sensitiveness under reproof the surest sign we needed it → 55 Letter 24: Imperfection only is intolerant of imperfection → 56 Letter 25: We should listen to God and not to self-love → 57 Letter 26: Absolute trust the shortest road to God → 58 Letter 27: The time of temptation and distress is no time to form resolves → 59 Letter 28: Who has love, has all → 60 Letter 29: Weakness preferable to strength, and practice better than knowledge → 61 Letter 30: Beware of the pride of reasoning; the true guide to knowledge is love → 62 Letter 31: The gifts of God not to be rejected on account of the channel that brings them → 63 Letter 32: Poverty and spoliation the way of Christ → 64 Letter 33: The will of God our only treasure → 65 Letter 34: Abandonment not a heroic sacrifice, but a simple sinking into the will of God → 66 Letter 35: Daily dying takes the place of final death → 67 Letter 36: Suffering belongs to the living, not the dead → 68 Letter 37: The limits of our grace are those of our temptation → 69 Letter 38: Resisting God, an effectual bar to grace → 70 Letter 39: God speaks more effectually in the soul, than to it → 71 Letter 40: The circumcision of the heart →