The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales Part 25

This Blessed Francis could do in all places and at all hours without being hindered by any company or occupations. This recollection of G.o.d and of ourselves was the favourite exercise of the great St. Augustine, who so often exclaimed: "Lord, let me know Thee, and know myself!" and of the great St. Francis, who cried out: "Who art Thou, my G.o.d and my Lord? and who am I, poor dust and a worm of the earth?" This frequent looking up to G.o.d and then down upon ourselves keeps us wonderfully to our duties, and either prevents us from falling, or helps us to raise ourselves quickly from our falls, as the Psalmist says: _I set the Lord always in my sight: for He is at my right hand, that I be not moved_.[1]

_Thou hast held me by my right hand; and by Thy will thou hast conducted me, and with Thy glory Thou hast received me_.[2] He teaches us how to practise this exercise in his Philothea, where, dealing with the subject of aspirations or ejaculatory prayers, he says: "In this exercise of spiritual retreat and ejaculatory prayers lies the great work of devotion. We may make up for the deficiency of all other prayers, but failure in this can scarcely ever be repaired. Without it we cannot well lead the contemplative life, and can only lead the active life very imperfectly; without it repose is idleness, and labour only vexation. This is why I conjure you to embrace it with your whole heart, and never to lay it aside."[3]

[Footnote 1: Psalm xv. 8.]

[Footnote 2: Psalm lxxii. 24.]

[Footnote 3: Part ii. c. xii. and xiii.]

UPON DOING AND ENDURING.

His opinion was that one ounce of suffering was worth more than a pound of action; but then it must be of suffering sent by G.o.d, and not self-chosen.

Indeed, to endure pain which is of our own choosing is rather to do than to suffer, and, speaking in general, our having chosen it spoils our good work, because self-love has insinuated itself into our motives. We wish to serve G.o.d in one way, while He desires to be served in another; we wish _what_ He wishes, but not _as_ He wishes it. We do not submit ourselves wholly and as we should do to His will.

A person who was very devout and who was accustomed to spend much time in mental prayer, being attacked with severe headache, was forbidden by her doctor to practise this devotion, as it increased her suffering and prevented her recovery. The patient much distressed at this prohibition wrote to consult our Blessed Father on the subject, and this is his reply:

"As regards meditation," he says, "the doctors are right. While you are so weak, you must abstain from it; but to make up you must double your ejaculatory prayers, and offer them all to G.o.d as an act of acquiescence in His good pleasure, which, though preventing you from meditating, in no way separates you from Himself, but, on the contrary, enables you to unite yourself more closely to Him by the practice of calm and holy resignation.

What matters it how or by what means we are united to G.o.d? Truly, since we seek Him alone, and since we find Him no less in mortification than in prayer, especially when He visits us with sickness, the one ought to be as welcome to us as the other. Moreover, ejaculatory prayers and the silent lifting of the heart to G.o.d, are really a continued meditation, and the patient endurance of pain and distress is the worthiest offering we can possibly make to Him who saved us through suffering. Read also occasionally some good book that will fill up what is wanting to you of food for the spirit."

UPON MORTIFICATION AND PRAYER.

Our Blessed Father considered that mortification without prayer is like a body without a soul; and prayer without mortification like a soul without a body. He desired that the two should never be separated, but that, like Martha and Mary, they should without disputing, nay, in perfect harmony, unite in serving our Lord. He compared them to the scales in a balance, one of which goes down when the other goes up. In order to raise the soul by prayer, we must lower the body by mortification, otherwise the flesh will weigh down the soul and hinder it from rising up to G.o.d, whose spirit will not dwell with a man sunk in gross material delights or cares.

The lily and the rose of prayer and contemplation can only grow and flourish among the thorns of mortification. We cannot reach the hill of incense, the symbol of prayer, except by the steep ascent on which we find the myrrh of mortification, needed to preserve our bodies from the corruption of sin.

Just as incense, which in Scripture represents prayer, does not give forth its perfume until it is burned, neither can prayer ascend to Heaven unless it proceeds from a mortified heart. Mortification averts temptations, and prayer becomes easy when we are sheltered under the protecting wings of mortification. When we are dead to ourselves and to our pa.s.sions we begin to live to G.o.d. He begins to feed us in prayer with the bread of life and understanding, and with the manna of His inspirations. In fine, we become like that pillar of aromatic smoke to which the Bride is compared, compounded of all the spices of the perfumer.[1]

Our Blessed Father's maxim on this subject was that: "We ought to live in this world as if our soul were in heaven and our body in the tomb."

[Footnote 1: Cant. iii. 6.]

UPON THE PRESENCE OF G.o.d.

The practice of recollection of the presence of G.o.d was so much insisted upon by our Blessed Father that, as you know, my sisters, he recommended it to your Congregation to be the daily bread and constant nourishment of your souls.

He used to say that to be recollected in G.o.d is the occupation of the blessed; nay, more, the very essence of their blessedness. Our Lord in the Gospel says that the angels see continually, without interruption or intermission, the face of their Father in heavens and is it not life eternal to see G.o.d and to be always in His most holy presence, like the angels, who are called the supporters of His throne.

You know that whenever you are gathered together for recreation, one of you is always appointed as a sort of sentinel to watch over the proper observance of this holy practice, p.r.o.nouncing from time to time, aloud, these words: "Sisters, we remind your Charities of the holy presence of G.o.d," adding, if it has been a day of general communion, "and of the holy communion of to-day."

Our Blessed Father on this subject says in his _Devout Life_: "Begin all your prayers, whether mental or vocal, by an act of the presence of G.o.d, Adhere strictly to this rule, the value of which you will soon realize."[1]

And again: "Most of the failures of good people in the discharge of their duty come to pa.s.s because they do not keep themselves sufficiently in the presence of G.o.d."

If you desire more instruction on the matter, read again what he has written about it in the same book.

[Footnote 1: Part ii. chap. 1.]

HIS UNITY OF SPIRIT WITH G.o.d.

_He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit_,[1] says St. Paul.

Our Blessed Father had arrived at that degree of union with G.o.d which is in some sort a unity, because the will of G.o.d in it becomes the soul of our will, that is, its life and moving principle, even as our soul is the life and the moving principle of our body. Hence his rapturous e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n: "Oh! how good a thing it is to live only in G.o.d, to labour only in G.o.d, to rejoice only in G.o.d!"

Again, he expresses this sentiment even more forcibly in the following words: "Henceforth, with the help of G.o.d's grace, I will no longer desire to be anything to any one, or that any one be anything to me, save in G.o.d, and for G.o.d only. I hope to attain to this when I shall have abased myself utterly before Him. Blessed be G.o.d! It seems to me that all things are indeed as nothing to me now, except in Him, for whom and in whom I love every soul more and more tenderly."

Elsewhere he says: "Ah! when will this poor human love of attentions, courtesies, responsiveness, sympathy, and favours be purified and brought into perfect accordance with the all pure love of the Divine will? When will our self-love cease to desire outward tokens of G.o.d's nearness and rest content with the changeless and abiding a.s.surance which He gives to us of His eternity? What can sensible presence add to a love which G.o.d has made, which He supports, and which He maintains? What marks can be lacking of perseverance in a unity which G.o.d has created? Neither presence nor absence can add anything to a love formed by G.o.d Himself."

[Footnote 1: 1 Cor. vi. 17.]

HIS GRAt.i.tUDE TO G.o.d FOR SPIRITUAL CONSOLATIONS.

In one of his letters written to a person both virtuous and honourable, in whom he had great confidence, he says: "If you only knew how G.o.d deals with my heart, you would thank Him for His goodness to me, and entreat Him to give me the spirit of counsel and of fort.i.tude, so that I may rightly act upon the inspirations of wisdom and understanding which He communicates to me." He often expressed the same thought to me in different words. "Ah!" he would say, "how good must not the G.o.d of Israel be to such as are upright of heart, since He is so gracious to those even who have a heart like mine, miserable, heedless of His graces, and earth-bound! Oh! how sweet is His spirit to the souls that love Him and seek Him with all their might! Truly, His name is as balm, and it is no wonder that so many ardent spirits follow Him with enthusiastic devotion, eagerly and joyously hastening to Him, led by the sweetness of His attractions. Oh! what great things we are taught by the unction of divine goodness! Being at the same time illumined by so soft and calm a light that we can scarcely tell whether the sweetness is more grateful than the light, or the light than the sweetness! Truly, the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of the Spouse are better than wine, and sweeter than all the perfumes of Arabia.[1]

"Sometimes I tremble for fear that G.o.d may be giving me my Paradise in this world! I do not really know what adversity is; I have never looked poverty in the face; the pains which I have experienced have been mere scratches, just grazing the skin; the calumnies spoken against me are nothing but a gust of wind, and the remembrance of them dies away with the sound of the voice which utters them. It is not only that I am free from the ills of life, I am, as it were, choked with good things, both temporal and spiritual. Yet in the midst of all I remain ungrateful and insensible to His goodness. Oh! for pity's sake, help me sometimes to thank G.o.d, and to pray Him not to let me have all my reward at once!

"He, indeed, shows that He knows my weakness and my misery by treating me thus like a child, and feeding me with sweetmeats and milk, rather than with more solid food. But oh, when will He give me the grace, after having basked in the suns.h.i.+ne of His favours, to sigh and groan a little under the burden of His Cross, since to reign with Him, we must suffer with Him, and to live with Him, we must die together with Him? a.s.suredly we must either love or die, or rather we must die that we may love Him; that is to say, die to all other love to live only for His love, and live only for Him who died that we may live eternally in the embrace of His divine goodness."

[Footnote 1: Cantic. i. 1, 2.]

UPON THE SHEDDING OF TEARS.

Although he was himself very easily moved to tears, he did not set any specially high value on what is called the gift of tears, except when it proceeds, not from nature, but directly from the Father of light, who sends His rain upon the earth from the clouds. He told me once that, just as it would be contrary to physical laws for rain, in place of falling from heaven to earth, to rise from earth to heaven; so it was against all order that sensible devotion should produce that which is supernatural. For this would be for nature to produce grace. He compared tears shed, in moments of mental excitement, by persons gifted with a strong power of imagination, to hot rains which fall during the most sultry days of summer, and which scorch rather than refresh vegetation. But when supernatural devotion, seated in the higher powers of the soul, breaking down all restraining banks, spreads itself over the whole being of man, he compared the tears it causes him to shed to a mighty, irresistible and fertilising torrent, making glad the City of G.o.d. Tears of this sort, he thought much to be desired, seeing that they give great glory to G.o.d and profit to the soul.

Of those who shed such tears, he said, the Gospel Beat.i.tude speaks when it tells us that: _Blessed are they that weep_.[1]

In one of his letters he writes as follows: "I say nothing, my good daughter, about your imagining yourself hard of heart, because you have no tears to shed. No, my child, your heart has nothing to do with this. Your lack of tears proceeds not from any want of affectionate resolve to love, G.o.d, but from the absence of sensible devotion, which does not depend at all upon our heart, but upon our natural temperament, which we are unable to change. For just as in this world it is impossible for us to make rain to fall when we want it, or to stop it at our own good pleasure, so also it is not in our power to weep from a feeling of devotion when we want to do so, or, on the other hand, not to weep when carried away by our emotion.

Our remaining unmoved at prayer and meditation proceeds, not from any fault of ours, but from the providence of G.o.d, who wishes us to travel by land, and often by desert land, rather than by water, and who wills to accustom us to labour and hards.h.i.+p in our spiritual life." On this same subject I once heard him make one of his delightful remarks: "What!" he cried, "are not dry sweetmeats quite as good as sweet drinks? Indeed they have one special advantage. You can carry them about with you in your pocket, whereas the sweet drink must be disposed of on the spot. It is childish to refuse to eat your food when none other is to be had, because it is quite dry. The sea is G.o.d's, for He made it, but His hands also laid the foundations of the dry land, that is to say, of the earth. We are land animals, not fish. One goes to heaven by land as easily as by water. G.o.d does not send the deluge every day. Great floods are not less to be feared than great droughts!"

[Footnote 1: Matt. v. 5.]

UPON JOY AND SADNESS.

As the blessedness of the life to come is called joy in Scripture, _Good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of thy Lord_, so also--it is in joy that the happiness of this present life consists. Not, however, in all kinds of joy, for the _joy of the hypocrite_ is _but for a moment_,[1] that is to say, lasts but for a moment.

It is said of the wicked that they _spend their days in wealth, and in a moment go down to h.e.l.l_,[2] and that _mourning taketh hold of the end of false joy._[3]

True, joy can only proceed from inward peace, and this peace from the testimony of a good conscience, which is called _a continual feast_.[4]

This is that joy of the Lord, and in the Lord, which the Apostle recommends so strongly, provided it be accompanied by charity and modesty.

Our Blessed Father thought so highly of this joyous peace and peaceful joy that he looked upon it as const.i.tuting the only true happiness possible in this life. Indeed he put this belief of his into such constant practice that a great servant of G.o.d, one of his most intimate friends, declared him to be the possessor of an imperturbable and unalterable peace.

On the other hand, he was as great an enemy to sadness, trouble, and undue hurry and eagerness, as he was a friend to peace and joy. Besides all that he says on the subject in his Philothea and his Theotimus, he writes thus to a soul who, under the pretext of austerity and penance, had abandoned herself to disquietude and grief: Be at peace, and nourish your heart with the sweetness of heavenly love, without which man's heart is without life, and man's life without happiness. Never give way to sadness, that enemy of devotion. What is there that should be able to sadden the servant of Him who will be our joy through all eternity? Surely sin, and sin only, should cast us down and grieve us. If we have sinned, when once our act of sorrow at having sinned has been made, there ought to follow in its train joy and holy consolation.

[Footnote 1: Job xx. 5.]