The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales Part 21

"What greater austerity can there be than to keep our will in subjection and In continual obedience, Rea.s.sure yourself then, O lover of voluntary penance, if, indeed, the works of self-love deserve to be called penances!

When you took the habit after many prayers and much consideration, it was thought good that you should enter the school of obedience and renunciation of your own will rather than remain the sport of your own judgment and of yourself.

"Do not then let yourself be shaken, but remain where our Lord has placed you. It is true that there you suffer great mortifications of heart, seeing yourself so imperfect and so deserving of reproof and correction, but is not this the very thing you ought to seeks mortification of heart and a continual sense of your own misery? Yet, you say, you cannot do such penance as you would. My dear daughter, tell me what better penance can be given to an erring heart than to bear a continual cross and to be always renouncing self-love?"

UPON THE SAME SUBJECT.

Blessed Francis was no great friend of unusual mortifications, and did not wish them to be practised except in the pressing necessity of violent temptations.

In such cases it was his desire that those so a.s.sailed should try to repel force by force, employing that holy violence which takes heaven by storm, for, as by cutting and burning health is restored to the body, so also by these caustic remedies holiness is often preserved in the soul.

He used to say that to those who made all kinds of exterior austerities their custom, the custom in time becomes a second nature;[1] that those who had hardened their skin no longer felt any inconvenience from cold, from hard couches, or coa.r.s.e garments, and that when the flame of concupiscence kindled this dry wood they possessed no remedy which they could apply to extinguish the fire.

They are like the pagan king, who had so accustomed himself to feed upon poison that when he wished to end his miseries with his life by taking it, he was obliged to live on against his will, and to serve as a sport to his enemies.

The devil cares very little about our body being laid low so long as he can hold on to us by the vices of the soul; and so cunning is he that often out of bodily mortifications, he extracts matter for vanity.

Our holy Bishop wrote as follows to a person who regretted that her health prevented her from continuing her accustomed austerities:

"Since you do not find yourself any longer able to practise corporal mortifications and the severities of penance, and since it is not at all expedient that you should think of doing so, on which point we are perfectly agreed, keep your heart calm and recollected in the presence of its Saviour; and as far as possible do what you may have to do solely to please G.o.d, and suffer whatever you may have to suffer according to His disposal of events in this life with the same intention. Thus G.o.d will possess you wholly and will graciously allow you to possess Him one day eternally."

With regard to the various kinds of mortification, that which is inward and hidden is far more excellent than that which is exterior, the former not being compatible, as is the latter, with hypocrisy, vanity, or indiscretion.

Again, those mortifications which come upon us from without, either directly from G.o.d or through men by His permission, are always superior to those which depend upon our own choice and which are the offspring of our will.

Many, however, find here a stumbling block, being very eager to embrace mortifications suggested by their own inclinations, which, after all, however apparently severe, are really easy because they are what nature itself wants.

On the other hand, mortifications which come to them from without and through others, however light they may be, they find insupportable. For example, a person will eagerly make use of disciplines, hair-shirts, and fasting, and yet will be so tender of his reputation that if once in a way laughed at or spoken against, he will become almost beside himself, robbed of his rest and even sometimes of his reason; and will perhaps in the end be driven to the most deplorable extremities.

Another will throw himself with ardour into the practice of prayer, penance, silence, and such like devotions, but will break out into a fury of impatience and complain indignantly and unrestrainedly at the loss of a law-suit, or at the slightest damage done to his property.

Another will give alms liberally and make magnificent foundations for the relief of the poor and sick, but will groan and tremble with fear when himself threatened with infirmity or sickness, however slightly; and upon experiencing the least possible bodily pain, will give vent to interminable lamentations.

In proportion as people are more or less attached to honours, gain, or mere pleasures, they bear with less or more patience the hindrances to them; nor do the majority of men seriously consider that it is the hand of G.o.d which gives and which takes away, which kills and which makes alive, which exalts and which casts down, as it pleases Him.

In order to heal this spiritual malady in a certain person our Blessed Father wrote to her: "Often and with all your heart kiss the crosses which G.o.d has laid upon your shoulders. Do not consider whether they are of precious and sweet-scented wood or not. And, indeed, they are more truly crosses when they are of coa.r.s.e, common, ill-smelling wood. It is strange, but one particular chant keeps ever coming back to my mind, and it is the only one I know. It is the canticle of the divine Lamb; sad, indeed, but at the same time harmonious and beautiful--_Father, not my will, but Thine be done_."[2]

[Footnote 1: It is not to be inferred that Saint Francis countenanced self-indulgence. He only wished to remove the idea common in his day, that devotion must be accompanied by austerity.--[Ed.]]

[Footnote 2: Luke xxii. 42.]

UPON FASTING.[1]

One day when we were talking about that holy liberty of spirit of which he thought so highly, as being one of the great aids to charity, Blessed Francis told me the following anecdote, which is a most practical ill.u.s.tration of his feelings on the subject.

He had been visited by a Prelate, whom, with his accustomed hospitality and kindness, he pressed to remain with him for several days. When Friday evening came, our Blessed Father went to the Prelate's room inviting him to come to supper, which was quite ready.

"Supper!" cried his guest. "This is not a day for supper! Surely, the least one can do is to fast once a week!" Our holy Bishop at once left him to do as he pleased, desiring the servants to take his collation to his room, while he himself joined the chaplains of the Prelate and his own household at the supper table.

The chaplains told him that this Prelate was so exact and punctilious in discharging all his religious exercises, of prayer, fasting, and such like, that he never abated one of them, whatever company he might have. Not that he refused to sit down to table with his visitors on fast days, but that he ate nothing but what was permitted by the rule he had imposed on himself. Our Blessed Father, after telling me this, went on to say that condescension was the daughter of charity, just as fasting is the sister of obedience; and that where obedience did not impose the sacrifice, he would have no difficulty in preferring condescension and hospitality to fasting.

The lives of the Saints furnish frequent examples of this. Above all, Scripture a.s.sures us, that by hospitality some have merited to receive Angels; from which declaration St. Paul takes occasion to exhort the faithful not to forget liberality and hospitality, as sacrifices well pleasing to G.o.d.[2]

"Remember," he said, "that we must not be so deeply attached to our religious exercises, however pious, as not to be ready sometimes to give them up. For, if we cling to them too tightly, under the pretext of fidelity and steadfastness, a subtle self-love will glide in among them, making us forget the end in the means, and then, instead of pressing on, nor resting till we rest in G.o.d Himself, we shall stop short at the means which lead to Him.

"As regards the occurrence of which I have been telling you, one Friday's fast, thus interrupted, would have concealed many others; and to conceal such virtues is no less a virtue than those which are so concealed. G.o.d is a hidden G.o.d, who loves to be served, prayed to, and adored in secret, as the Gospel testifies.[3] You know what happened to that unthinking king of Israel, who, for having displayed his treasures to the amba.s.sadors of a barbarian prince, was deprived of them all, when that same heathen king descended upon him with a powerful army.

"The practice of the virtue of condescension or affability may often with profit be subst.i.tuted for fasting. I except, however, the case of a vow, for in that we must be faithful even to death, and care nothing about what men may say, provided that G.o.d is served. _They that please men have been confounded, because G.o.d hath despised them._"[4]

He asked me one day if it was easy for me to fast. I answered that it was perfectly easy, as it was a rare thing for me to sit down to table with any appet.i.te. "Then," he rejoined, "do not fast at all." On my expressing great astonishment at these words, and venturing to remind our Blessed Father that it was a mortification, strongly recommended to us by G.o.d Himself.

"Yes," he replied, "but for those who have better appet.i.tes than you have.

Do some other good work, and keep your body in subjection by some other mode of discipline." He went on, however, to say that fasting was, indeed, the greatest of all corporal austerities, since it puts the axe to the root of the tree. The others only touch the bark lightly; they only sc.r.a.pe or prune it. Whereas when the body waxes fat it often kicks, and from this sort of fatness sin is likely to proceed.

"Those who are naturally sober, temperate, and self-restrained have a great advantage over others in the matter of study and spiritual things. They are like horses that have been well broken in, horses which have a strong bridle, holding them in to their duty."

He was no friend to immoderate fasting, and never encouraged it in his penitents, as we see in his "Introduction to a Devout Life," where he gives this reason against the practice: "When the body is over-fed, the mind cannot support its weight; but when the body is weak and wasted. It cannot support the mind." He liked the one and the other to be dealt with in a well-balanced manner, and said that G.o.d wished to be served with a reasonable service; adding--that it was always easy to bring down and reduce the bodily forces, but that it was not so easy a matter to build them up again when thus brought low. It is easy to wound, but not to heal.

The mind should treat the body as its child, correcting without crushing it: only when it revolts must it be treated as a rebellious subject, according to the words of the Apostle: _I chastise my body and bring it into subjection_.[Footnote 5]

[Footnote 1: The Saint is here speaking of fasts of devotion, not of those of obligation.--[Ed.]]

[Footnote 2: Heb. xiii. 2, 16.]

[Footnote 3: Matt. vi. 6.]

[Footnote 4: Psalm lii. 6.]

[Footnote 5: 1 Cor. ix. 27.]

DOUBTS SOLVED AS TO SOLDIERS FASTING.

I was so young when called to the episcopate that I lived in a state of continual mistrust and uncertainty; doubtful about this, scrupulous about that; ignorance being the grandmother of scruples, as servile fear is their mother.

At the time of which I am going to speak, the residences of our Blessed Father and myself were only eight leagues apart, and in all my perplexities and difficulties I had recourse to his judgment and counsel. I kept a little foot-boy in my service, almost entirely employed in running to and fro between Belley and Annecy, carrying my letters to him and bringing back his replies. These replies were to me absolute decrees; nay, I should rather say oracles, so manifestly did G.o.d speak by the mouth and pen of that holy man.

On one occasion it happened that the captains of some troops--then stationed in garrison on the borders of Savoy and France, on account of a misunderstanding which had arisen between the two countries--came to me at the beginning of Lent to ask permission for their men to eat eggs and cheese during that season. This was a permission which I had never given except to the weak and sickly. I learned from the men themselves that they were exceedingly robust and hearty, and only weak and reduced as regarded their purses, their pay being so small that it barely supplied them with food. Nevertheless, I did not consider this poor pay a sufficient reason for granting a dispensation, especially in a district where Lent is so strictly kept that the peasants are scandalized when told that on certain days they may eat b.u.t.ter.

In my difficulty I despatched a letter at once to our Blessed Father, whose reply was full of sweetness and kindness. He said that he honoured the faith and piety of the good centurions, who had presented this request, which, indeed, deserved to be granted, seeing that it edified, not the Synagogue, but the Church. He added that I ought not only to grant it, but to extend it, and instead of eggs, to permit them to eat oxen, and instead of cheese, the cows of whose milk it is made.

"Truly," he went on to say, "you are a wise person to consult me as to what soldiers shall eat in Lent, as if the laws of war and necessity did not over-ride all others without exception! Is it not a great thing that these good men submit themselves to the Church, and so defer to her as to ask her permission and blessing? G.o.d grant that they may do nothing worse than eat eggs, cheese, or beef; if they were guilty of nothing more heinous than that, there would not be so many complaints against them."

THE GOLDEN MEAN IN DISPENSATIONS.

"It is quite true," said our Blessed Father, on one occasion, "that there are certain matters in which we are meant to use our own judgment, and in which, if we judge ourselves, we shall not be chastised by G.o.d. But there are others in which, with the eye of our soul, that is, with our judgment, it is as with the eye of the body, which sees all things excepting itself.

We need a mirror. Now, this mirror, as regards interior things, is the person to whom we manifest our conscience, and who is its judge in the place of G.o.d."

He went on to say that in the matter of granting dispensations to his flock, he had told a certain Prelate, who had consulted him on the subject, that the best rule to give to others, or to take for oneself in such questions, is to love one's neighbour as oneself, and oneself as others, in G.o.d and for G.o.d. "If," he continued, addressing the Prelate, "you now take more trouble about granting these necessary dispensations to others than in getting them for yourself, the time will come when you will be generous, easy, and indulgent towards others, and severe and rigorous towards yourself. Perhaps you imagine that this second line of conduct is better than the other. It is not, and you will find the repose and peace of your soul only in the golden mean, which is the one wholesome atmosphere for the nourishing of virtue."

UPON THE WORDS, "EAT OF ANYTHING THAT IS SET BEFORE YOU."

Our Blessed Father held in great esteem the Gospel maxim, _Eat such things as are set before you_.[1] He deemed it a much higher and stronger degree of mortification to accommodate the tastes and appet.i.te to any food, whether pleasant or otherwise, which may be offered, than always to choose the most inferior and coa.r.s.est kinds. For it not seldom happens that the greatest delicacies--or those at least which are esteemed to be such by epicures--are not to our taste, and therefore to partake of them without showing the least sign of dislike is by no means so small a matter as may be thought. It incommodes no one but the person who so mortifies himself, and it is a little act of self-restraint so secret, so securely hidden from others, that the rest of the company imagine something quite different from the real truth.