The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales Part 5

A person of some consideration, and one who made much profession of living a devout life, was overtaken by sudden misfortune, which deprived her of almost all her wealth and left her plunged in grief. Her distress of mind was so inconsolable that it led her to complain of the Providence of G.o.d, who appeared, she said, to have forgotten her. All her faithful service and the purity of her life seemed to have been in vain.

Blessed Francis, full of compa.s.sionate sympathy for her misfortunes, and anxious to turn her thoughts from the contemplation of herself and of earthly things, to fix them on G.o.d, asked her if He was not more to her than anything; nay, if, in fact, G.o.d was not Himself everything to her; and if, having loved Him when He had given her many things, she was not now ready to love Him, though she received nothing from Him. She, however, replying that such language was more speculative than practical, and easier to speak than to carry into effect, he wound up by saying, with St.

Augustine: _Too avaricious is that heart to which G.o.d does not suffice._ "a.s.suredly, he who is not satisfied with G.o.d is covetous indeed." This word _covetous_ produced a powerful effect upon the heart of one who, in the days of her prosperity, had always hated avarice, and had been most lavish in her expenditure, both on her own needs and pleasures and on works of mercy. It seemed as if suddenly the eyes of her soul were opened, and she saw how admirable, how infinitely worthy of love G.o.d ever remained, whether with those things she had possessed or without them. So, by degrees, she forgot herself and her crosses; grace prevailed, and she knew and confessed that G.o.d was all in all to her. Such efficacy have a Saint's words, even if unpremeditated.

CHARITY THE SHORT ROAD TO PERFECTION.

Blessed Francis, in speaking of perfection, often remarked that, although he heard very many people talking about it, he met with very few who practised it. "Many, indeed," he would say, "are so mistaken in their estimate of what perfection is, that they take effects for the cause, the rivulet for the spring, the branches for the root, the accessories for the principle, and often even the shadow for the substance."

For myself, I know of no Christian perfection other than to love G.o.d with our whole heart and our neighbour as ourselves. All other perfection is falsely so ent.i.tled: it is sham gold that does not stand testing.

Charity is the only bond between Christians, the only virtue which unites us absolutely to G.o.d, and our neighbour.

In charity lies the end of every perfection and the perfection of every end. I know that mortification, prayer, and the other exercises of virtue, are all means to perfection, provided that they are practised in charity, and from the motive of charity. But we must never regard any of these means towards attaining perfection as being in themselves perfection. This would be to stop short on the road, and in the middle of the race, instead of reaching the goal.

The Apostle exhorts us, indeed, to run, but so as to carry off the prize[1], which is for those only who have breath enough to reach the end of the course.

In a word, all our actions must be done in charity if we wish to walk in a manner, as says St. Paul, worthy of G.o.d; that is to say, to hasten on towards perfection.

Charity is the way of true life; it is the truth of the living way; it is the life of the way of truth. All virtue is dead without it: it is the very life of virtue. No one can reach the last and supreme end, G.o.d Himself, without charity; it is the way to Him. There is no true virtue without charity, says St. Thomas; it is the very truth of virtue.

In conclusion, and in answer to my repeated question as to how we were to go to work in order to attain to this perfection, this supreme love of G.o.d and of our neighbour, our Blessed Father said that we must use exactly the same method as we should in mastering any ordinary art or accomplishment.

"We learn," he said, "to study by studying, to play on the lute by playing, to dance by dancing, to swim by swimming. So also we learn to love G.o.d and our neighbour _by loving_ them, and those who attempt any other method are mistaken."

You ask me, my sisters, how we can discover whether or not we are making any progress towards perfection. I cannot do better than consult our oracle, Blessed Francis, and answer you in his own words, taken from his eighth Conference. "We can never know what perfection we have reached, for we are like those who are at sea; they do not know whether they are making progress or not, but the pilot knows, knowing the course. So we cannot estimate our own advancement, though we may that of others, for we dare not a.s.sure ourselves when we have done a good action that we have done it perfectly--humility forbids us to do so. Nay, even were we able to judge of the virtues of others, we must never determine in our minds that one person is better than another, because appearances are deceitful, and those who seem very virtuous outwardly and in the eyes of creatures, may be less so in the sight of G.o.d than others who appear much more imperfect."

I have often heard him say that the multiplicity of means proposed for advancement towards perfection frequently delays the progress of souls.

They are like travellers uncertain of the way, and who seeing many roads branching off in different directions stay and waste their time by enquiring here and there which of them they ought to take in order to reach their journey's end. He advised people to confine themselves rather to some special spiritual exercise or virtue, or to some well-chosen book of piety--for example, to the exercise of the presence of G.o.d, or of submission to His will, or to purity of intention, or some similar exercise.

Among books, he recommended chiefly, _The Spiritual Combat_, _The Imitation of Jesus Christ_, _The Method of Serving G.o.d_, _Grenada_, _Blosius_, and such like. Among the virtues, as you know well, his favourites were gentleness and humility, charity--without which others are of no value--being always pre-supposed.

On this subject of advancement towards perfection, he speaks thus in the ninth of his Conferences:

"If you ask me, 'What can I do to acquire the love of G.o.d?' I answer, _Will_; i.e., _try_ to love Him; and instead of setting to work to find out how you can unite your soul to G.o.d, put the thing in practice by a frequent application of your mind to Him. I a.s.sure you that you will arrive much more quickly at your end by this means than in any other way.

"For the more we pour ourselves out the less recollected we shall be, and the less capable of union with the Divine Majesty, who would have all we are without reserve."

He continues: "One actually finds souls who are so busy in thinking how they shall do a thing that they have no time to do it. And yet, in what concerns our perfection, which consists in the union of our soul with the Divine Goodness, there is no question of knowing much; but only of doing."

Again, in the same Conference, he says: "It seems to me that those of whom we ask the road to Heaven are very right in answering us as those do who tell us that, in order to reach such a place, we must just go on putting one foot before the other, and that by this means we shall arrive where we desire. Walk ever, we say to these souls so desirous of their perfection, walk in the way of your vocation with simplicity, more intent on doing than on desiring. That is the shortest road." "And," he adds, "in aspiring to union with the Beloved, there is no other secret than to do what we aspire to--that is, to labour faithfully in the exercise of Divine love."

[Footnote 1: 1 Cor. ix. 24.]

UPON WHAT IT IS TO LOVE G.o.d TRULY.

In connection with this subject of the love of G.o.d and of our neighbour, I asked our Blessed Father what _loving_ in this sense of the word really was. He replied: "Love is the primary pa.s.sion of our emotional desires, and a primary element in that emotional faculty which is the will. So that to will is nothing more than to love what is good, and love is the willing or desiring what is good. If we desire good for ourselves we have what is called self-love; if we desire good for another we have the love of friendship."

To love G.o.d and our neighbour, then, with the love of charity, which is the love of friendship, is to desire good to G.o.d for Himself, and to our neighbour in G.o.d and for the love of G.o.d. We can desire two sorts of good for G.o.d: that which He has, rejoicing that He is what He is, and that nothing can be added to the greatness and to the infinity of His inward perfection; and that which He has not, by wishing it for Him, either effectively, if it is in our power to give it to Him, or by loving and longing, if it is not in our power to give it. For, indeed, there is a good which G.o.d desires and which is not His as it should be in perfection. That external good, as it is called, is the good which proceeds from the honour and glory rendered to Him by His creatures, especially by those among them endowed with reason. This is the good which David wishes to G.o.d in so many of his Psalms. Among others, in the _Praise ye the Lord from the heavens_,[1] and in the _Bless the Lord, O my soul_.[2]

The three children also in the fiery furnace wish this good to G.o.d by their canticle: _All ye works of the Lord, bless the Lord._[3]

If we truly love G.o.d we shall try to bring this good to Him through ourselves, surrendering our whole being to Him, and doing all our actions, the indifferent as well as the good, for His glory.

Not content with that, we shall also strive with all our might to make our neighbour serve and love G.o.d, so that by all and in all things G.o.d may be honoured.

To love our neighbour in G.o.d is to rejoice in the good which our neighbour possesses, provided, indeed, that he makes use of it for the divine glory; to render him in his need all the a.s.sistance which lies within our power; to be zealous for the welfare of his soul, and to work for it as we do for our own, because G.o.d wills and desires it. That is to have true and unfeigned charity, and to love G.o.d sincerely and steadfastly for His own sake and our neighbour for the love of Him.

[Footnote 1: Psalm cxlviii. 1.]

[Footnote 2: Id. ciii. 1.]

[Footnote 3: Dan. iii. 57.]

UPON THE LOVE OF G.o.d IN GENERAL.

A whole mountain of virtues, if dest.i.tute of this living, reigning, and triumphant love, was to Blessed Francis but as a petty heap of stones. He was never weary of inculcating love of G.o.d as the supreme motive of every action.

The whole of his Theotimus (_The Treatise on the Love of G.o.d_) breathes this sentiment, and he often told me that it was impossible to insist upon it too strongly in our teaching and advice to our people. "For, in fact,"

he used to say, "what is the use of running a race if we do not reach the goal, or of drawing the bow if we do not hit the target?" Oh! how many good works are useless as regards the glory of G.o.d and the salvation of souls, for want of this motive of charity! And yet, this is the last thing people think of, as if the intention were not the very soul of a good action, and as if G.o.d had ever promised to reward works not done for His glory, and not applied to His honour.

ALL FOR LOVE OF G.o.d.

You know very well how Blessed Francis valued charity, but I will give you, nevertheless, some more of his teaching on this great subject.

To a holy soul who had placed herself under his direction, he said: "We must do all things from love, and nothing from constraint. We must love obedience rather than fear disobedience. I leave you the spirit of liberty: not such as excludes obedience, for that is the liberty of the flesh, but such as excludes constraint, scruples, and over-eagerness. However much you may love obedience and submission, I wish you to suspend for the moment the work in which obedience has engaged you whenever any just or charitable occasion for so doing occurs. This omission will be a species of obedience.

Fill up its measure by charity."

From this spirit of holy and Christian liberty originated the saying so often to be met with in his letters: "Keep your heart in peace." That is to say: Beware of hurry, anxiety, and bitterness of heart. These he called the ruin of devotion. He was even unwilling that people should meditate upon the great truths of Death, Judgment and h.e.l.l, unless they at the same time rea.s.sured themselves by the remembrance of G.o.d's love for them. Speaking to a holy soul, he says: "Meditation on the four last things will be useful to you provided that you always end with an act of confidence in G.o.d. Never represent to yourself Death or h.e.l.l on the one side unless the Cross is on the other; so that when your fears have been excited by the one you may with confidence turn for help to the other." The one point on which he chiefly insisted was that we must fear G.o.d from love, not love G.o.d from fear. "To love Him from fear," he used to say, "is to put gall into our food and to quench our thirst with vinegar; but to fear Him from love is to sweeten aloes and wormwood."

a.s.suredly, our own experience convinces us that it is difficult to love those whom we fear, and that it is impossible not to fear with a filial and reverent fear those whom we love.

You find some difficulty, it seems, my sisters, in understanding how all things, as St. Paul says,[1] whether good, bad, or indifferent, can in the end work together for good to those who love G.o.d.

To satisfy you, I quote the words of Blessed Francis on this subject in one of his letters. "Since," he says, "G.o.d can bring good out of evil, will He not surely do so for those who have given themselves unreservedly to Him?

Yes; even sins, from which may G.o.d in His goodness keep us, are by His Divine Providence, when we repent of them, changed into good for those who are His. Never would David have been so bowed down with humility if he had not sinned, nor would Magdalene have loved her Saviour so fervently had He not forgiven her so many sins. But He could not have forgiven them had she not committed them."

Again: "Consider, my dear daughter, this great Artificer of mercy, who changes our miseries into graces, and out of the poison of our iniquities compounds a wholesome medicine for our souls. Tell me, then, I beseech you, if G.o.d works such wonders with our sins, what will He not effect with our afflictions, with our labours, with the persecutions which we have to endure? No matter what trouble befalls you, nor from what direction it may come, let your soul be at peace, certain that if you truly love G.o.d all will turn to good. And though you cannot see the springs which work this marvellous change, rest a.s.sured that it will take place.

"If the hand of G.o.d touches your eyes with the clay of shame and reproach, it is only to give you clearer sight, and to cause you to be honoured.

"If He should cast you to the ground, as He did St. Paul, it will only be to raise you up again to glory."[2]

[Footnote 1: Rom. viii. 28.]

[Footnote 2: Rom. viii. 28.]

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.