The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales Part 27

It happened that Blessed Francis fell ill at the very time when his predecessor in the Bishopric of Geneva was imploring the Holy See to appoint him as his coadjutor.

The illness was so serious that the physicians despaired of his life, and this our Blessed Father was told. He received the announcement quite calmly, and even joyfully, as though he saw the heavens open and ready to receive him, and being entirely resigned to the will of G.o.d both in life and in death, said only:

"I belong, to G.o.d, let Him do with me according to His good pleasure."

When someone in his presence said that he ought to wish to live if not for the service of G.o.d at least that he might do penance for his sins, he answered thus: "It is certain that sooner or later we must die, and whenever it may be, we shall always have need of the great mercy of G.o.d: we may as well fall into His pitiful hands to-day as to-morrow. He is at all times the same, full of kindness, and rich in mercy to all those who call upon Him: and we are always evil, conceived in iniquity, and subject to sin even from our mother's womb. He who finishes his course earlier than others has less of an account to render. I can see that there is a design afoot to lay upon me a burden not less formidable to me than death itself. Between the two I should find it hard to choose. It is far better to submit myself to the care of Providence: far better to sleep upon the breast of Jesus Christ than anywhere else. G.o.d loves us. He knows better than we do what is good for us. _Whether we live, or whether we die, we are the Lord's._[1]

_He has the keys of life, and of death._[2] _They who hope in Him are never confounded._[3] _Let us also go, and die with Him._" And when someone said it was a pity he should die in the flower of his age (he was only thirty-five), he answered: "Our Lord was still younger when He died. The number of our days is before Him, He can gather the fruits which belong to Him at any season. Do not let us waste our time and thoughts over circ.u.mstances; let us consider only His most holy will. Let that be our guiding star; it will lead us to Jesus Christ whether in the cribs or on Calvary. Whoever follows Him shall not walk in darkness but shall have the light of eternal life, and shall be no more subject to death."

These were the words, this was the perfect resignation, of our Blessed Father. Who can say we have not here the cause of the prolongation of his days, even as a like resignation led to the prolonging of those of King Ezechias.

[Footnote 1: Rom. xiv. 8]

[Footnote 2: Apoc. i. 18.]

[Footnote 3: Psalm xxiv. 3.]

THAT WE MUST ALWAYS SUBMIT OURSELVES TO G.o.d'S HOLY WILL.

In 1619, when our Saint was in Paris with the Prince of Savoy, a gentleman of the court fell dangerously ill. He sent for Blessed Francis, who, when visiting him, remarked with some surprise that, although he bore his physical sufferings with great patience, he fretted grievously about other troubles seemingly of very small moment. He was distressed at the thought of dying away from home, at being unable to give his family his last blessing, at not having his accustomed physician by his side, etc. Then he would begin to worry about the details of his funeral, the inscription on his tombstone, and so on. Nothing was right in his surroundings; the sky of Paris, his doctors and nurses, his servants, his bed, his rooms, all were matters of complaint. "Strange inconsistency!" exclaimed the holy Bishop.

"Here is a brave soldier and a great statesman, fretted by the merest trifles, and unhappy because he cannot die in exactly the circ.u.mstances which he would have chosen for himself." I am glad to be able to add that in spite of all this the poor man made a holy and a happy end.

But Blessed Francis afterwards said to me: "It is not enough to will what G.o.d wills, we must also desire that all should be exactly, even in the minutest detail and particular, as G.o.d wills it to be. For instance, in regard to sickness we should be willing to be sick because it pleases G.o.d that we should be so; and sick of that very sickness which G.o.d sends us, not of one of a different character; and sick at such time, and in such place, and surrounded by such attendants, as it may please G.o.d to appoint.

In short, we must in all things take for our law the most holy will of G.o.d."

HIS SUBLIME THOUGHTS ON HOLY INDIFFERENCE.

Many of the saints, and especially St. Catherine of Siena, St. Philip Neri, and St. Ignatius Loyola, have spoken in the most beautiful and elevated language of that holy indifference which, springing from the love of G.o.d, makes life or death and all the circ.u.mstances of the one or the other equally acceptable to the soul which realizes that all is ordered by the will of G.o.d.

Let us hear what our Blessed Father says on this subject in his _Treatise on the Love of G.o.d_.

"G.o.d's will is the sovereign object of the indifferent soul; wheresoever she sees it she runs after the odour of its perfumes, directing her course ever thither where it most appears, without considering anything else. She is conducted by the divine will, as by a beloved chain; which way soever it goes she follows it: she would prize h.e.l.l with G.o.d's will more than heaven without it; nay, she would even prefer h.e.l.l before heaven if she perceived only a little more of G.o.d's good-pleasure in that than in this, so that if--to suppose what is impossible--she should know that her d.a.m.nation would be more agreeable to G.o.d than her salvation, she would quit her salvation and run to her d.a.m.nation."[1]

This is, indeed, a bold and daring proposition, but to convince you how tenaciously he clung to it I would remind you of his words in the Conferences;[2] on the same subject: "The saints who are in heaven are so closely united to the will of G.o.d that if there were even a little more of His good-pleasure in h.e.l.l than in paradise they would quit paradise to go there." And again in the same Conference: "Whether the malady conquers the remedies or the remedies get the better of the malady should be a matter of perfect indifference. So much so that if sickness and health were put before us and our Lord were to say to us: 'If thou choose health I will not deprive thee of a single particle of my grace, if thou choose sickness I shall not in any degree increase that grace, but in the choice of sickness there is a little more of my good-pleasure,' the soul which has wholly forsaken herself and abandoned herself into the hands of our Lord will undoubtedly choose sickness solely because it is more pleasing to G.o.d. Nay, though this might mean a whole lifetime spent on her couch in constant suffering, she would not for any earthly consideration desire to be in any other condition than this."

[Footnote 1: Bk. ix., c. 5.]

[Footnote 2: Conf. ii.]

NOTHING, SAVE SIN, HAPPENS TO US BUT BY THE WILL OF G.o.d.

"Nothing happens to us," Blessed Francis was accustomed to say, "whether of good or of evil, sin alone excepted, but by the will of G.o.d." Good, because G.o.d is the source of all good. _Every best gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights_.[1] Evil, for, _Shall there be evil in the city which the Lord hath not done_?[2] The evil here spoken of is that of pain or trouble, seeing that G.o.d cannot will the evil of crime, which is sin, though he permits it, allowing the human will to act according to the natural liberty which He has given to it. Properly speaking, sin cannot be said to happen to us, because what happens to us must come from without, and sin, on the contrary, comes from within, proceeding from our hearts, as holy Scripture expressly states, telling us also that _iniquity comes from our fatness_,[3] that is to say, from our ease and luxury.

Oh, what a happiness it would be for our souls if we accustomed ourselves to receive all things from the fatherly hand of Him who, in opening it, fills all things living with blessing! What unction should we not draw from this in our adversities! What honey from the rock, what oil from the stones! And with how much moderation should we not behave in prosperity, since G.o.d sends us both the one and the other, that we may use both to the praise and glory of His grace.

[Footnote I: St. James i. 17.]

[Footnote II: Amos iii. 6.]

[Footnote III: Psalm lxxii. 7.]

UPON THE SAME SUBJECT.

I must confess to you, my sisters, that I was astonished to read in one of our Saint's letters that our Lord Jesus Christ did not possess the quality of indifference in the sensitive part of His nature.

I will give the exact words in which this wonderful fact is stated. "This virtue of indifference," he says, "is so excellent that our old Adam, and the sensitive part of our human nature, so far as its natural powers go, is not capable of it, no, not even in our Lord, who, as a child of Adam, although exempt from all sin, and from everything pertaining to sin, yet in the sensitive part of his nature and as regards his human faculties was in no way indifferent, but desired not to die upon the Cross. Indifference, and the exercise of it, is entirely reserved for the spirit, for the supreme portion of our nature, for faculties set on fire by grace, and in fine for Himself personally, inasmuch as He is divine and human, the New Man. How, then, can we complain when as far as this lower portion of our nature is concerned we find ourselves unable to be indifferent to life, and to death, to health, and to sickness, to honour and to ignominy, to pleasure and to pain, to comfort and to discomfort, when, in a word, we feel in ourselves that conflict going on which the vessel of election experienced in such a manner as to make him exclaim: _Unhappy man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?_"[1]

The love of ourselves is so deeply rooted in our nature that it is impossible wholly to rid ourselves of it. Even grace does not do away with our self-love, but only reduces it to the service of divine charity.

By the love of self I mean a natural, just, and legitimate love, so legitimate indeed as to be commanded by the law of G.o.d which bids us love our neighbour as ourselves; that is to say, according to G.o.d's will, which is not only the one way in which we can rightly love our neighbour, but also the one way in which we are commanded to love ourselves.

Nevertheless, this love of ourselves, however just and reasonable it may be, turns only too easily, and too imperceptibly, into a self-love, which is unlawful and forbidden, but into which even persons the most earnest and the most spiritual are at times surprised.

We often think we love someone, or something in G.o.d, and for G.o.d, when it is really only in ourselves, and for ourselves, that we do so. We think sometimes that we have only an eye to the interests of G.o.d, which is His glory, when it is really our own glory which we are seeking in our work.

This is when we stop short voluntarily at the creature to the prejudice of the Creator; as comes to pa.s.s in all sin, whether mortal or venial. We must therefore watch and be constantly on our guard lest we fall into this snare. From it we must s.n.a.t.c.h our soul as we would a bird from the snare of the fowler. We shall be safe if we remember that every just and lawful love in us is always either in actual touch with the love of G.o.d, or can be brought into such touch, whilst self-love is never in such touch, nor can ever be brought into it.

This is the test by which we can detect the false coin that is mixed up with the true.

[Footnote 1: Rom. vii. 24.]

UPON ABANDONING OURSELVES TO G.o.d.

I cannot tell you, my sisters, how great a point our Blessed Father made of self-abandonment, _i.e._, self-surrender into the hands of G.o.d. In one place he speaks of it as: "The cream of charity, the odour of humility, the flower of patience, and the fruit of perseverance. Great," he says, "is this virtue, and worthy of being practised by the best beloved children of G.o.d."[1] And again, "Our Lord loves with a most tender love those who are so happy as to abandon themselves wholly to His fatherly care, letting themselves be governed by His divine Providence without any idle speculations as to whether the workings of this Providence will be useful to them to their profit, or painful to their loss, and this because they are well a.s.sured that nothing can be sent, nothing permitted by this paternal and most loving Heart, which will not be a source of good and profit to them. All that is required is that they should place all their confidence in Him, and say from their heart, _Into Thy hands I commend my spirit_, my soul, my body, and all that I have, to do with them as it shall please Thee."[2]

You are inclined, my sisters, to say that we are not all of us capable of such entire self-renunciation, that so supreme an act of self-abandonment is beyond our strength. Hear then, too, what our Blessed Father goes on to say. These are his words in the same Conference: "Never are we reduced to such an extremity that we cannot pour forth before the divine majesty the perfume of a holy submission to His most holy will, and of a continual promise never wilfully to offend Him."

[Footnotes 1, 2: Conf. 2.]

UPON INTERIOR DESOLATION.

As there are, more thorns than roses in our earthly life, and more dull days than sunny ones, so also in our spiritual life our souls are more frequently clouded by a sense of desolation, dryness, and gloom, than irradiated by heavenly consolations and brightness.

Yet our Blessed Father says that "those are mistaken who think that, even in Christians, whose conscience does not accuse them of sins unconfessed, but on the contrary bears good witness for them, a heavy heart and sorrow-laden mind is a proof of G.o.d's displeasure.

"Has G.o.d not said that He is with us in tribulation, and is not His Cross the mark of the chosen? At the birth of Jesus, while the shepherds were surrounded by the light which shone from heaven and their ears filled with the songs of angels, Mary and Joseph were in the stable in the darkness of night, the silence only broken by the weeping of the Holy Child. Yet who would not rather be with Jesus, Mary, and Joseph in that shadowy gloom than with the shepherds even in their ecstasy of heavenly joy? St. Peter, indeed, amid the glories of Thabor said: _It is good to be here, let us make here three tabernacles_.[1] But Holy Scripture adds: _Not knowing what he said_.

"The faithful soul loves Jesus covered with wounds and disfigurements on Calvary, amid the darkness, the blood, the crosses, the nails, the thorns, and the horror of death: loves Him, I say, as dearly, as fervently as in His triumph, and cries out from a full heart amid all this desolation:

"Let us make here three tabernacles, one for Jesus, one for His holy Mother, and one for His beloved disciple."

[Footnote 1: Luke ix, 33.]

UPON THE PRESENCE IN OUR SOULS OF THE GRACE OF G.o.d.

There is, I think, no greater temptation than one which a.s.sails many good people, namely, the desire to know for certain whether or not they are in a state of grace.

To a poor soul entangled in a perfect spider's web of doubt and mistrust, our Blessed Father wrote the following consoling words: "To try and discover whether or not your heart is pleasing to G.o.d is a thing you must not do, though you may undoubtedly try to make sure that His Heart is pleasing to you. Now, if you meditate upon His Heart it will be impossible but that it should be well pleasing to you, so sweet is it, so gentle, so condescending, so loving towards those of His poor creatures who do but acknowledge their wretchedness: so gracious to the unhappy, so good to the penitent. Ah! who would not love this royal Heart, which to us is as the heart both of a father and of a mother?"