____________________________________________LETTER 7 Guastalla, November 3, 1538To the children of Paul the Apostle and ours too: Mr. Giacomo Antonio [Morigia],122 Mr. Battista [Soresina],123and all the others. At St. Ambrose’s.  In Milan   MY SWEETEST CHILDREN IN CHRIST,It seems that the devil is sowing doubts in me about what is going on among you.  Yes, he is suggesting to me that, since none of us is present in the community, among all other evils that he has sown and is still sowing in your hearts, there reigns confusion in our house.  In fact nothing there goes on in an orderly fashion.  I certainly do not want to believe this, but, just the same, I want to open my heart to you.  And do not believe that it is my habit, as it seems to you, to send you harsh letters.  No, they are prompted by my extreme love, which makes me worry about you.My suspicion, then, does not lead me to conclude, but at least to doubt very much, that the devil is telling me the truth.  In fact, it seems that some among you, as if dozing or sleeping, are not complying with the intentions of their Superiors.As you know, my dearly beloved, it would be a good thing indeed if our Superiors were to write down on paper all rules and regulations.  But what good would they be if they were not also written in our minds?  If, for instance, there were someone, not a disciple of ours, who nonetheless would take delight in interpreting our intentions carefully and in carrying them out faithfully, always keeping them before his eyes—this one, indeed, would be a far better and more genuine disciple of ours than the one who had our intentions written on paper, but not in his heart, even if he loved to call himself our disciple.Do not believe it to be a small evil to forget or to neglect our Superiors’ intentions.  For what else would that look like but lose interest in our initial resolutions, or having our Superiors clearly understand that, should they pass away or, for some reason, absent themselves, we would soon leave aside their directives?  Is it possible that those who possess greater fervor than their teachers may be inclined to dismantle the foundations established by the latter?  Does not just the opposite happen: that far from abolishing them, they would add some more, not, of course, to contradict the former, but to bring them to greater perfection and to consolidate them?Thanks be to God for blinding us so as to enable you to see better and to beget your own children as legitimate children, since your parents begot you as bastards!  If your eyes are blind and adulterous, can you imagine what the rest of your body will be?132I am not making these remarks to shame you,133 but only because I would like you to show your Superiors the same attachment that they show you.  But shouldn’t your virtuous hearts, because of the natural knowledge engraved in them, sustain you so that you may no longer need written laws?  And if you are generous, you will learn to conduct yourselves with the law engraved in your hearts, rather than with external laws.  Thus you will move forward to fulfill not so much the word of the law but its spirit.  If you then do not want to obey like slaves, but like family children, that is the way you should act.Thus, if you have a Superior, you will let him direct you, as if there were an angel for that task, without caring who the Superior is—this or that person. And whether the Superior is present or absent, you will always safeguard the union of the body with its head and never cause divisions.  You will be careful in the future not to stick rigidly to your Superiors’ words and guidelines, but you will learn to be flexible in each circumstance by interpreting their intentions for the best.And, again, you will not foolishly try to be equal to others by imitating their way of behaving and talking because, if it is all right for an immature person like a child to say “mommy” and “daddy”, it is not so for an adult.  It is qu