Oblates of St. Francis de Sales

New DeSales World Newsletter - Summer Edition

15th Sunday in Ordinary Time (July 11, 2004)

Suggested Emphasis

"This command that I enjoin on you today...is already in your mouths and in your hearts; all that remains is for you to carry it out."

Salesian Perspective

In the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Indiana Jones asks his mentor, Marcus Brody: "Do you believe, Marcus? Do you believe that the grail exists?" His older friend and mentor soberly and softly replies: "The search for the grail is the search for the divine in all of us."

The search for the divine is not about going to far away places. The search for the divine is not about looking up to the sky. The search for the divine is not about crossing great oceans. No, the search for the divine is about the greatest - and sometimes the most challenging - adventure of all: the search inside ourselves. It is the journey to the heart. It is the journey to the soul, the core, and the center of our being.

Francis de Sales certainly believed this. He wrote in his Introduction to the Devout Life: "God is in all things and in all places. There is no place or thing in their world in which God is not truly present." But this, says Francis de Sales, is not enough, for "God is not only in the place where you are; God is also present in a most particular manner in your heart, in the very center of your spirit." (Part II, Chapter 2)

Of course the search for divine in all of us is not limited to a journey to the heart. The search for - and recognition of - the divine in us must be pursued in the other great journey: reaching out and caring for one another.

Jesus powerfully makes this point in parable of the Good Samaritan. Two people who should have known better (given their head knowledge) walked past a neighbor in need: certainly no way of acknowledging the presence of the divine in another. Clearly, and more tragically, perhaps indicative of their failure to acknowledge God's abiding presence within themselves.

A third man, by contrast, is "moved to compassion" at the plight of the other. He is able to reach out to another in need because he first had the courage to see inside himself the presence of a God who loves and cares for him: the presence of a God who called him to do the same for others.

God dwells everywhere, most especially in our hearts. Francis de Sales challenges us: "Examine your heart often. Does your heart look upon your neighbor in the same way as you would like your neighbor's heart to look upon you?"

All that remains is for us is "to carry it out," to extend our hearts - and in us, the heart of God - to our neighbors in need.

Always. Everywhere.

Michael S. Murray, OSFS, is Executive Director of the De Sales Spirituality Center at Childs, MD