Sub-subseries

This sub-subseries documents the religious practice of Parménie Robillard, of Sainte-Anne. It is composed of a six-page handwritten notebook, which contains two separate texts. The pages numbered 1 through 3 set forth a "Method of Mental Prayer," while pages 4 through 6 are filled with a "Morning Prayer." The latter is incomplete because one or more pages are missing.

"Mental prayer is an elevation and application of our mind and heart to God, in order to fulfil our duties to Him, to expose our wants to Him, and to become a better person for His glory." After having defined this spiritual practice, the author then carefully describes the method, explaining the attributes and reflections needed at each step and the spiritual actions to take. Mental prayer is composed of three parts: "the preparation, the body or substance of prayer and the conclusion." Each step is analyzed in turn, and specific prayers like Veni Sancte and Sub tuum præsidium are mentioned. The primary values stressed in this text, which seems to have been copied from a guide written by the Third Order of St. Francis, are faith, humility and moral purification. These are achieved by imitating saints and the Virgin Mary as well as by resolving to practise virtue and to avoid vice and sin.

The prayer that follows expresses an intense love for and complete devotion to God. The author thanks God for letting her live to see another day, which she can use to "render Him the honour and glory He is due, " and offers Him all her thoughts, words, actions, and everything within her, in order that "they may all be used and carried out in service to Him and His love." She hopes that His "Divine son" will pardon her sins and give her the grace to continue making her offering until she draws her last breath. She also firmly resolves, with the help of this grace, "to never give in to any sin and, in particular, to guard against any faults and failings that [she is] most susceptible to," before offering her heart to God and asking for His blessing.

The author of these lines appears to have been a member of a religious congregation. If she was Parménie Robillard (born 1859), the daughter of Sévère Robillard and Adelaide Gemme, this notebook could have been written when she was a novice in a religious community, before her 1888 marriage to Napoléon Robillard in Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue.