Salesian Steps To Spiritual Serenity
In Part III of his Introduction to the Devout Life, Francis de Sales wrote this about the virtue of patience: “By patient endurance we will win our souls. It is our great happiness to possess our own souls, and the more perfect our patience the more completely we will possess our souls. We must often recall that our Lord has saved us by his own suffering and endurance and that we must work out our salvation by sufferings and affliction, enduring with all possible gentleness the injuries, denials and discomforts we may experience.”
In this consists the secret of spiritual serenity as seen through the eyes of Salesian spirituality. Serenity is the ability to possess your soul, knowing who you are, being unmoved by agitation or turmoil, managing to deal with life’s challenges in a calm and unruffled manner, experiencing the power that comes from self-discipline and self-mastery. As the American Heritage Dictionary of the English LanguageL suggests, being serene or tranquil is to be “cool or calm, especially in trying circumstances.”
Serenity is not about having a care-free life. Serenity is about dealing with the cares of life in a clear, conscious, calm and anxiety-free manner. Fr. James Harvey, OSFS shares his reflections and own struggles of trying to experience and share this gift of spiritual serenity in his article entitled Salesian Steps to Spiritual Serenity.
We hope that his outline of these steps (nine in all) may assist you in coming to understand more clearly how to achieve the kind of serenity that only God can give, a serenity which nevertheless we can own and share with others. There reflections may be especially helpful to anyone who is in the process of any kind of recovery.
Fr. James Harvey lives at the Oblate community at Childs, Maryland.
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