Francois de Salignac de la Mothe Fenelon

O how seldom is it that the soul keeps itself silent enough for god to speak!
The smallest murmur of our vain desires, or of a self-love attentive to self,
confounds all the words of the divine spirit. We perceive very well that he speaks,
and that he demands something; but we know not what he says,
and we are often very glad not to guess it. The least reserve, the least regard to self,
the smallest apprehension of hearing too clearly that God demands what we are unwilling to give,
disturbs the internal speaking.


Primary Sources:
OEuvres, Saint Sulpice ed., 10 vols., Paris, 1852
The Correspondence Between Fenelon and Guyon
((abridged, selections by P.L. Upham, 1870)
Letters of Love and Counsel (with an Intro by Thomas Merton, McEwen trans.)
A Guide to True Peace (also Molinos and Fenelon)

Secondary Sources:
A.M. Ramsey: History of the Life of Fenelon, Eng. tr., London, 1897
Paul Janet: Fenelon, His Life and Works, London, 1914

The Maxims of the Saints
Concerning the Interior Life
and Thirty-Four Articles, together with Fenelon's Letters
to the Pope on the Same Subject
London, 1698 Thompson &c Publ

Selections from the Table of contents:
The several sorts of love wherewith we may love God
The names of these five sorts of love:
Servile love
Self-centered love
The love of hope
Interested love
Pure love

Articles:
Three different degrees of just persons on earth
Of interested love
What holy indifference is
What abandoning one's self is
The extreme trials of abandoning
The soul's resistance makes these trials long and painful
The difference between common temptations and the trials of an entire purification
The state of the soul that abandons herself to god in these extreme trials
The soul's absolute sacrifice of its own interest to God
The difference between the vigilancy of pure and interested love
Common and extraordinary temptations, and the difference between them
The difference between meditation and contemplation
Habitual contemplation
Perpetual prayer
Of passive contemplation
Why they call it the prayer of silence, or quietude
The reuniuon of all the virtues in love
Of the state of transformation
Of the internal exercises of transformed souls
Transformed souls may sin
How a transformed soul is united to God
Of spiritual marriages
Of substantial union
The submission of the spiritual man
The economny and secret of the sublimest exercise of pure love
All the internal ways are but the means to arrive at pure love

Select Letters: (The Royal Way of the Cross, Helms, ed)
Seeing our true spiritual state before God
Concerning a real conversion
What does he ask of you?
Fear of being wrong
False and real humility
The deceitfulness of self-love
On criticizing others
False notions of spiritual progress
On anxiety about the future
On self-deceit
On the dangers of human praise
On dealing wisely with the faults of others
One doing all for God
On the life of peace
To one in spiritual distress
On bearing the bad opinions of the world
On Christian perfection
On the burden of prosperity
Rules for a busy life
On lukewarmness
On the dangers of intellectual attractions
On the use of time
On the loving severity of God
Dryness and deadness in Prayer
On Peace of conscience
On openness and candor
On patience under contradiction
On bearing affronts
On the presence of God
On seeing ourselves in God's light
On conformity to the will of God
On legalism and freedom

Select Letters to Women: (Petersen and Hutchinson, eds)
On Meditation and Prayer
On Meditation (various essays)
Need for devotion amid a worldy life
On silence and recollection
Prejudice
Peace amid trial
Not to postpone plans of amendment
A holy life possible everywhere
Freedom from self
The beginnings of divine love
How the love of God lightens suffering
How to accept encouragement
Self-will in religious exercises
The cross everywhere
The necessity and benefit of suffering
On calmness of mind
How to do all in the spirit of prayer
In sickness and trial
On the prospect of death in old age
On seeking help in interior trouble
On openness and candour
How to accept all God's dealings thankfully
On indecision and weakness
Inward peace
On gratitude