Oblates of St. Francis de Sales

New DeSales World Newsletter - Summer Edition

20TH Sunday in Ordinary Time (August 19, 2007)

Suggested Emphasis

"Do you think I have come to establish peace on the earth? I assure you, the contrary is true: I have come for division."

Salesian Perspective

This is a hard saying that we hear from Jesus in today's Gospel. However, when we stop to consider our own experience of trying to faithfully live the Gospel, we realize that it is not merely a hard saying. It is a hard truth.

Generally speaking, we experience this "division" in two ways.

First, our attempts to follow Jesus may produce division within ourselves. While our attempts to practice a life of devotion - as the author of the Letter to the Hebrews might say, to "lay aside every encumbrance of sin which clings to us and persevere in running the race which lies ahead" - should be its own reward, it also brings its own share of struggles. Our daily effort to turn away from sin and to pursue a life of virtue is imperfect at best. Who of us cannot relate to St. Peter's confession of his failures to do what he should do and his apparent inability to refrain from doing things that he should not do? Many of us experience the spiritual life as a form of the game "Chutes and Ladders" wherein our virtues are hard-fought and our vices come all too easily.

Francis de Sales knows of this experience all too well. He wrote: "It may well turn out that this change in your life will cause you many problems. While you have bid a great, general farewell to the follies and vanities of the world, your decision brings on a feeling of sadness and discouragement." (Introduction, Part IV, Chapter 2)

Second, our attempts to follow Jesus may produce division within our relationships with others. While doing what is right should be its own reward, we also know that sometimes "no good deed goes unpunished." Francis de Sales observed: "As soon as worldly people see that you wish to follow a devout life they aim a thousand darts of mockery and even detraction at you. The most malicious of them will slander your conversion as hypocrisy, bigotry and trickery. They will say that the world has turned against you and, being rebuffed by it, you have turned to God. Your friends may raise a host of objections which they consider very prudent and reasonable. They will tell you that you will become depressed, grow old before your time and that your affairs at home will suffer. They will say that you can save your soul without going to such extremes, and a thousand similar trivialities." (Introduction, Part IV, Chapter 1)

Ironically, it is only in the midst of these experiences of division (both within ourselves and with others) that are sometimes part and parcel of our attempts at pursuing lives of devotion that we can have any hope of finding true peace: the peace that comes from our patient perseverance at being faithful to who God calls us to be, regardless of how the voices within us and around us may try to dissuade us from our quest. Our experiences of the troubles that come with doing the right thing - living the right way - remind us of yet another hard truth.

Peace has its price.

Rev. Michael S. Murray, OSFS, is the Executive Director of the De Sales Spirituality Center.