Oblates of St. Francis de Sales

New DeSales World Newsletter - Summer Edition

Fourth Sunday in Lent (March 30, 2003)

Suggested Emphasis

"For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from us; it is the gift of God… For we are his handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for the good works that God has prepared in advance, that we should live in them." (Eph 2:8-10)

Salesian Perspective

Through various imaginative metaphors in his Treatise on the Love of God, Francis de Sales describes in detail the importance of love. The quest to love God and neighbor is the central goal of human life; it is our natural inclination to love. In turn, God the Lover longs for communion with his creation. In Book Two of this tome, he writes:

The sun’s warm rays give life to all things; nature depends on the sun for fertility. God’s goodness too gives life to the souls of all, inspires all hearts to love him; as with the sun, none can escape its burning heat. See, then, how deeply God longs for our love.

This warm love is a gift from God, which we receive without any merit of our own. In fact, although we fail at times choosing sin, God has chosen to give us his only Son. Through the sacrifice of God’s Son, we are shown this love in a most profound way. What an awesome gift! God is so merciful that despite our human faults, we are given the best gift, salvation through Christ.

The reading from Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians describes this infinite and loving mercy of God. During Lent, it is fitting that we are reminded of the salvation given through Christ’s death and resurrection. More importantly, we are given the reason – love. Christ Jesus is the love template that humanity follows as an example in our journey toward communion with God and each other: we are “his handiwork, created in Christ Jesus.” This is echoed in today’s Gospel reading from John: “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son” so that “the world might be saved through him” (John 3:16-17).

This salvation offered through Christ Jesus is cyclically tied to our journey of love. De Sales writes:

For this reason, our good Jesus, whose blood paid our ransom, has an infinite longing for us to love him, so that we may be saved forever; he has a longing too for our salvation, so that we may love him forever…his love urges him to save us; our salvation urges us to love him.

Therefore, God creates us out of love, and desires for our love in return. To help us respond to this invitation of love, God showers upon us many means of assistance, the greatest of which is salvation. This is the gift upon which to reflect as we continue to move through Lent.

RESOURCES
de Sales, Francis. The Love of God. Translated, abridged and introduced by Vincent Kerns. Bangalore: SFS Publications, 1987.
Wright, Wendy M. and Joseph F. Power. Introduction to Letters of Spiritual Direction, by Francis de Sales and Jane de Chantal. The Classics of Western Spirituality. New York: Paulist Press, 1988.

Bro. Daniel P. Wisniewski, OSFS is Instructor of Mathematics
at DeSales University in Center Valley, PA.