The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales Part 41

"Even if holy women only served as perfumes for the Church they would not be useless. A great deal of incense is employed by her in her ceremonies!

"It is true that there are, as you say, a great many other Congregations already in the Church, into which some of those who are enrolled in this new one might enter; but there are, besides, many in the Visitation who, on account of their age or infirmities, or because of their feebleness of const.i.tution, though they be young, are quite incapable of enduring the bodily austerities imposed by other Orders, and therefore cannot be admitted into them. If we receive into this one some who are strong and healthy, it is that they may wait upon the weak and delicate, for whom this Congregation has chiefly been inst.i.tuted, and to put in practice that holy command: _Bear ye one another's burdens, and so you shall fulfil the law of Christ._[1]

"As for your exhortation to me to think about forming a Congregation of Priests, do you not see that that is already planned by M. de Berulle, a great and faithful servant of G.o.d, who has far more capacity for the work, and much more leisure also, than I can get? Remember how heavily burdened I am with the charge of a diocese, in which is situated such a place as Geneva, the very fountain-head of the errors which are troubling the whole Church. In conclusion, let us leave great designs to great workmen. G.o.d will do what He pleases with my little plan."

[Footnote 1: Gal. vi. 2.]

UPON THE ODOUR OF SANCt.i.tY.

Our Blessed Father held in the very highest esteem the odour of sanct.i.ty, and revered those who by their good example shed it abroad through the world, not for their own glory, but for the glory of G.o.d.

On another occasion when some morose and captious person was finding fault with the Visitation Order, and after taking exception to it because of its newness, wound up by saying to Blessed Francis, "And then of what use will it be to the Church?" The holy Prelate answered pleasantly: "To play the part of the Queen of Sheba." "And what part is that?" returned the man, "To render homage to Him who is greater than Solomon, and to fill the whole militant Jerusalem with perfumes and sweet odours."

In one of his Conferences he expresses the same thought as follows: "In my opinion the divine Majesty has made choice of you to go forth as perfume-bearers, seeing that He has commissioned you to go and scatter far and wide the sweet odours of the virtues of your Inst.i.tute. And as young maidens love sweet odours (for the Bride in the Canticle of Canticles says that the name of her Beloved is _as oil_, or balm, shedding on all sides the sweetest perfumes, and _therefore_, she adds, the _young maidens_ have followed Him, attracted by His divine perfumes), so do you, my dear sisters, as perfume-bearers of the Divine Goodness, go forth, shedding all around the incomparable sweetness of sincere humility, gentleness, and charity, so that many young maidens may be attracted thereby, and may embrace your manner of life, and that they may even in this world enjoy, like you, a holy loving peace and tranquillity of soul, and in the world to come eternal happiness."

HE REBUKES PHARISAISM.

On one occasion when the Sisters of the Visitation had made a foundation in a city famous for the piety of its inhabitants and in which there were already a number of Religious Houses highly esteemed for external austerities and severe discipline, they met with much criticism and even harsh treatment on account of their own gentler and apparently easier rule.

In the end, they made known to Blessed Francis what they had to put up with.

I ought, perhaps, to say that, among other ill-natured remarks, they had been reproached with having strewn a path of roses to lead them to Heaven, and with having brought our Saviour down from the Cross; meaning that they did not practise many corporal austerities. Those who said this quite forgot the fact that this Order of the Visitation was founded for the reception and consolation largely of women, whether young or old, weak in bodily health, though strong and healthy in mind, whose feeble frames could not support the external rigour demanded by other Communities.

Our Blessed Father, as I told you, having heard from letters addressed to him by the Superior, of the harsh treatment and sufferings of his poor daughters, wrote to her several times on the subject. The following words of his are especially remarkable for their beauty:

"Beware, my daughter, of replying in any way whatever to these good Sisters, or to their friends in the world, unless, indeed, you do so with unalterable humility, gentleness, and sweetness. Do not defend yourselves,[1] for such is the express command of the Holy Ghost. If they despise your Order because it appears to them inferior to theirs, they violate the law of charity, which does not permit the strong to despise the weak, or the great the small. Granted that they are superior to you, do the Seraphim despise the little Angels, or the great Saints in Paradise, those of inferior, nay, of the lowest rank? Oh, my dear daughter, whoever loves G.o.d the most will be the most loved by Him, and will be the most glorious up in Heaven. Do not distress yourself, the prize is awarded to those who love."

[Footnote 1: Rom. xii. 19.]

UPON RELIGIOUS SUPERIORS.

Speaking of Superiors, I may tell you that Blessed Francis divided them into four cla.s.ses. "First," he said, "there are those who are very indulgent to others, and also to themselves. Secondly, there are those who are severe to others, and equally so to themselves. Thirdly, there are some who are indulgent to their subordinates and rigid to themselves. Fourthly, there are those who are indulgent to themselves and rigorous to others."

He condemned the first as careless and criminal persons, heedless of their duties: they abandon the s.h.i.+p they should pilot, to the mercy of the waves.

A Superior of the second kind often spoils everything precisely because he wishes to do too much, and falls into those exaggerations which have lent truth to the saying, "Absolute right is absolute injustice." "He who would rule well," runs an ancient aphorism, "must rule with a slack hand." We must not hold our horse's bridle over tightly, for though we may save him from stumbling we hinder him even from walking.

Superiors of the third cla.s.s are better because they put a kindly construction upon the faults and infirmities of others less known to them, as they necessarily are, than their own. This is the reason why they are severe to themselves and indulgent to others--a line of conduct which generally meets with the approval of their subjects. The latter are the more edified because they see their Superiors observing those very laws from which they have dispensed them. It is just so with the laity: they are mostly more anxious about the morals of their clergy than they are about their own.

Superiors of the fourth and last kind are truly unfaithful servants. They resemble those Pharisees who _laid on the shoulders of other men heavy burdens which_ they themselves would not touch with the tip of their finger.

Our Blessed Father wished that all these four cla.s.ses could be merged in a fifth, that of which the watchword should be holy equality according to that precept both of nature and of the Gospel: "Do to others as you would be done by; treat others as you would wish to be treated yourself, and treat yourself as you know you ought to be treated." In fact, since each man is to himself his nearest neighbour, we all recognise the injustice of demanding in the life of others what we do not practise in our own. To command others to do what we do not ourselves do is to be like Urias, who carried his own condemnation and death-warrant in his bosom.

One day, in his presence, I was praising a certain Superior for his extreme goodness, gentleness, patience, and condescension, which attracted all hearts to him, just as flies are attracted to a honeycomb. He answered, "Goodness is not good when it puts up with evil; on the contrary, it is bad when it allows evils to go on which it can, and should, prevent. Gentleness in such a case is not gentleness, but weakness and cowardice. Patience in such a case is not patience, but absolute stupidity.

"When we suffer evil which we could prevent, we do not merely tolerate but become accomplices in wrong-doing. I am of opinion that subjects are made good by bad, I mean, by harsh and disagreeable Superiors. The severity of a mother is more wholesome for a child than the petting of an indulgent nurse, and the firmness of a father is always more useful to his children than their mother's tenderness. The rougher the file the better it smoothes the iron, and the more rust it rubs off; the hotter the iron, the better the surface it gives to the cloth." He related with regard to this subject an anecdote which will both please and profit you.

The head of a certain Religious Order, which was at the time undergoing a vigorous reform, had, with the consent of the Provincial Chapter, established a Novitiate House which was to serve as the one only Seminary for the whole province. It was decided that no novice should be clothed until he had been examined by three Fathers of the Order appointed for that purpose. The first was to enquire into the birth and condition of those who presented themselves for examination, the second into their literary capacity, and the third into their manner of life and vocation. This last, in order to get a firm grip on the pulse of the postulants, and to sound their vocation to the very quick almost always asked them if they would have courage and patience enough to put up with bad Superiors, bad in the extreme, cruel, rude, peevish, choleric, melancholy, captious, pitiless, those, in a word, whom they would find it impossible to please or satisfy.

Some, evading the question, replied that there could be none such in the Order, or, at least, would not be suffered to remain in office, seeing that it was governed with so much gentleness and benignity, and that its yoke was so sweet and desirable. The examiner, who did not like evasive and ambiguous replies of this sort, determined to get an answer that should be straight-forward and to the point. Taking a much sterner tone, he represented a Superior to them as a sort of slave-driver: a man who would govern his subjects by blows and stripes, and who yet would expect them to drink this chalice of bitterness as if offered to their lips by the hand of G.o.d.

Some of the postulants fearing the test, became pale or crimson with agitation, and either answered nothing, showing by their silence that they could not swallow the pill, or, if they answered at all, declared that they could not believe he was speaking seriously, and that they were not galley-slaves.

These he dismissed at once as unfit to be received into the Order.

Others, however, full of courage and constancy, still answered, that they were prepared for any ill-treatment, and that nothing could deter them from carrying out their G.o.d-inspiring resolution. That no creature, however cruel and however unfeeling, could separate them from the love of Jesus Christ, nor from His service. These the examining Father received with open arms into the bosom of the Order.

You may judge from this how skilful was this master of novices in hewing, hammering, and cutting the stones he was endeavouring to fit for the spiritual edifice of the Order. Our Blessed Father himself, in spite of all the sweetness and gentleness of his natural disposition, did not fail to follow this plan to a certain extent, representing to all who came to him, desiring to enter into religion, the interior and spiritual crosses which they must resolve to carry all their life long, not the least heavy of which, and at the same time not the least useful in helping them to make great advance in perfection would perhaps be the severity of Superiors.

UPON UNLEARNED SUPERIORS.

A certain community having had their Superior taken from them on account of their complaints of the severity of his rule, and having a new one set over them in his place, came to Blessed Francis to pour out their grievances on the subject of their recently appointed head. They declared that he was an ignorant man. "What is to be done with you?" cried our Blessed Father, "you remind me of the frogs to whom Jupiter could not give a king who was to their taste. We ought certainly to wish to have good and capable Superiors, but still whatever they may be we must put up with them." One of the complainers was so wanting in discretion as to say that their one-eyed horse had been changed into a blind one. Blessed Francis suffered this jest to pa.s.s, merely frowning slightly, but his modest silence only unchained the tongue of another scoffer who presumed to say that an a.s.s had been given to them instead of a horse. Then Blessed Francis spoke, and, rebuking this last speech, added in a tone of gentle remonstrance, that the first remark, though far from being respectful, was more endurable because it was a proverb and implied that a Superior had been given to them who was less capable than his predecessor, and that this was expressed in figurative terms, as David speaks of himself in relation to Almighty G.o.d in one of the Psalms when he says: _I am become as a beast before Thee._[1] "The second sarcasm, however," he added, "has nothing figurative in it, and is absolutely and grossly insulting. We must never speak of our Superiors in such a manner, however worthless they may be. Remember that G.o.d would have us obey even the vicious and froward,[2] and he that _resisteth the power resisteth the ordinance of G.o.d_."

Then taking up the defence of this much-abused Superior, "Do you imagine,"

he said, "that it is not within the power of G.o.d to exalt in a moment one who is poor in spirit by bestowing on him the gift of intelligence? Is not He the G.o.d of knowledge? Is it not He who imparts it to men? Are not all the faithful taught of G.o.d?

"The science of the Saints is the science of Salvation, and this is a knowledge more frequently given to those who are dest.i.tute of the knowledge which puffs up. In what condition think you was Saul when G.o.d raised him to the throne of Israel?

"He was keeping his father's a.s.ses. On what did Jesus Christ ride triumphant on Palm Sunday? Was it not upon an a.s.s?"

Again, in his eleventh Conference, he says: "If Balaam was well instructed by an a.s.s, we may with greater reason believe that G.o.d, Who gave you this Superior, will enable him to teach you according to His will, though it may not be according to your own."

He wound up his remarks on the subject of the new Superior by saying: "I understand that this good man is most gentle and kind, and that if he does not know much he does none the less well, so that his example makes up for any deficiency in his teaching. It is far better to have a Superior who does the good which he fails in teaching, than one who tells us what we ought to do, but does not himself practise it."

[Footnote 1: 1 Peter ii. 18.]

[Footnote 2: Rom. xiii. 2.]

UPON THE FOUNDING OF CONVENTS.

You know, my Sisters, with what circ.u.mspection and prudence our Blessed Father moved in the matter of foundations. During the last thirteen years of his life, in which he established your Congregation, he only accepted twelve convents and refused three times as many, saying, as was his wont, "Few and good." He was always very particular about the Superiors to whom he committed the charge of monastic houses, knowing the immense importance of such choice and its influence upon all the members of a Religious family.

He was fond of comparing a convent to a beehive, and in one of his Conferences applies this comparison to your own Order as follows:--"Your Congregation," he says, "is like a bee-hive which has already sent forth various swarms: but with this difference, that when bees go forth to settle in another hive and to begin a new household each swarm chooses a particular queen under whom they live and dwell apart.

"You, my dear souls, though you may go into a new hive, that is, begin a new house of your Order, have always only one and the same King, our crucified Lord, under Whose authority you will live secure and safe wherever you may be. Do not fear that anything will be wanting to you, for, as long as you do not choose any other King He will ever be with you; only take great care to grow in love and fidelity to His divine goodness, keeping as close to Him as possible. Thus all will be well with you. Learn from Him all that you will have to do; do nothing without His counsel, for He is the faithful Friend who will guide you and govern you and take care of you, as with all my heart I beseech Him to do."[1]

Very often I urged him to consent to certain foundations which it was proposed to make, but He always gave me some good reason for refusing.

It was not without trouble and difficulty that we obtained a little colony for Belley. He often said to me: "The Sisters are as yet but novices in piety, they must be left to grow a little stronger; have patience, for we shall be doing quite enough if the little we do is what pleases our divine Master. It is better for them to grow at the roots by virtue rather than in the branches by forming new houses. Will they, do you think, be more perfect because they have more convents?"

[Footnote 1: Conf. 6.]

UPON RECEIVING THE INFIRM INTO COMMUNITIES.