Daily Salesian Reflections
Enjoy daily Mass reading through the lens of Salesian Spirituality
Daily Reflections: September 15 - September 21
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(September 15, 2024: Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time)
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“Get thee behind me, Satan.”
The saints are heroes of our faith tradition. They are people to whom we look for guidance and inspiration. They are people we admire. They remind us God can accomplish in us the kinds of things God accomplished in them. But the stories of the saints are more than a consideration of the promise of human strength, courage, fidelity and tenacity. Their stories are also powerful reminders of the reality of human frailty, weakness and infidelity. In a sermon he preached on Palm Sunday, March 1622, Francis de Sales observed:
“All creatures, you see, are a mixture of perfection and imperfection. For this reason, they can be used as symbols of either. Every person, no matter how holy, has some imperfections. Made in God’s image, each person reflects something of God’s goodness while, at the same time, that same person carries some imperfections.” (Pulpit and Pew)
Consider the example of St. Peter in today’s Gospel. When the apostles were asked the question by Jesus, “Who do you say I am?” Peter is the first to proclaim: “You are the Messiah!” A mere few verses following this great public demonstration of faith, Peter takes issue with Jesus’ prediction of his ultimate rejection, death and resurrection, and is subjected to a great public humiliation when Jesus turns on him and proclaims: “Get thee behind me, Satan!”
In the case of St. Peter, this display would not be the last of both his perfections and imperfections. In the Treatise on the Love of God, Francis commented:
“Who would not marvel at the heart of St. Peter, so bold among armed soldiers that he alone takes his sword in hand and strikes out with it? Yet, just a short time later, among unarmed people, he is so cowardly that at the mere word of a servant girl he denies and detests his master.” (TLG, Book X, Chapter 9)
Francis de Sales believed that we have as much to learn from the setbacks of the saints as we do from their successes.
“It is a good thing to see the defects in the lives of the saints. It not only shows God’s goodness in forgiving them, but it also teaches us to imitate the saints in their efforts to overcome their failings and to do penance for them. We study the virtues of the saints in order to imitate them; we study the failings of the saints in order to avoid them.” (Ibid)
This way of looking at the saints can be most helpful in our everyday attempts to “Live Jesus”. Seeing the defects of the saints can serve as a strong vaccine against any dismay or discouragement we may experience when faced with our own sins, failings and imperfections. Likewise, seeing the virtues of the saints can dissuade us from becoming smug or satisfied with our shortcomings.
What is the bottom line? The saints are our companions for the journey. They have much to teach us about how to pursue a life of devotion: overcoming our sins and failings and strengthening our practice of virtue. Francis de Sales (himself a saint) challenges us to see the saints as real people, and to realize that we can learn as much from their setbacks as we can from their successes.
Beginning today!
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(September 18, 2024: Cornelius, Pope and Cyprian, Bishop: Martyrs)
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“I ask that supplications, prayers, petitions, and thanksgivings be offered…that we may lead a quiet and tranquil life in all devotion and dignity.”
True devotion not only does no violence to ordinary, everyday life – in fact, it should also enhance it. Among other things, devotion can produce an abundance of tranquility. Synonyms associated with tranquility include:
· peace
· peacefulness
· restfulness
· repose
· calm
· calmness
· quiet
· quietness
· stillness
· composure
· serenity
· equanimity
· unflappability
St. Jane de Chantal observed:
“Preserve peace of heart and tranquility. Do not disturb yourselves about anything. Never trouble yourselves whatever may happen to you or around you. Tranquility precludes haste and levity. It makes us do everything in the spirit of repose, without hurry. I say not slowly or carelessly, but quietly, as before God.”
Note the distinction – tranquility is not about doing nothing. Tranquility is about doing something – anything – in a careful, composed, calm and unflappable manner.
Today, how might we go about serving God and neighbor in tranquility?
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(September 17, 2024: Tuesday, Twenty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time)
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“Now the body is not a single part, but many.”
In his Treatise on the Love of God, St. Francis de Sales wrote:
“The supreme unity of the divine act is opposed to confusion and disorder but not to distinction and variety. On the contrary, it employs these last to bring forth beauty by reducing all difference and diversity to proportion, proportion to order and order to the unity of the world, which comprises all things, both visible and invisible. All these together are called the universe perhaps because all their diversity is reduced to unity, as if one were to say ‘unidiverse,’ that is, unique and diverse, unique along with diversity and diverse along with unity. In sum, God’s supreme unity diversifies all things and his permanent eternity gives change to all things…” (TLG, Book II, Chapter 2, p. 106)
Everything– be it our physical bodies, our families or our churches – is made up a variety of things. Everything – be it our physical bodies, our families or our churches – works best when each and every part does what it is designed and destined to do.
Each and every one of us makes up some part of the Body of Christ. The fact that no two of us are exactly the same actually makes possible the unity toward which Jesus asks us to work. In this challenge we experience a great paradox, perhaps the greatest of all paradoxes. It is only when each of us is fully and authentically our unique selves that unity with others is truly possible. Put another way, unity is not the same as uniformity, i.e., being exactly the same. Where everything or everybody is the same, then there can never be true unity.
Just this day, do you want to do your part to contribute something to the unity of any body – be it family, friends, neighbors, co-workers or church goers – of which you are a part? Then simply try your level best to be your unique self.
And allow – even encourage – others to do the same!
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(September 18, 2024: Wednesday, Twenty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time)
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“To what shall I compare the people of this generation?”
You’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t.
The above statement is essentially what Jesus is saying in today’s selection from the Gospel of Luke. John the Baptist was criticized for eschewing food and drink, whereas Jesus was criticized for enjoying food and drink. Try as you might to do the right thing – try as you might to be true to yourself - some days you just can’t win!
St. Francis de Sales was certainly no stranger to the dynamic of being damned if you do and damned if you don’t, especially when it comes to trying to live a life of devotion. Citing this very selection from today’s Gospel, he observed:
“We can never please the world unless we lose ourselves together with it. It is so demanding that it can’t be satisfied. ‘John came neither eating nor drinking,’ says the Savior, and you say, ‘He has a devil.’ ‘The Son of man came eating and drinking’ and you say that he is ‘a Samaritan’ If we are ready to laugh, play cards or dance with the world in order to please it, it will be scandalized at us, and if we don’t, it will accuse us of hypocrisy or melancholy. If we dress well, it will attribute it to some plan we have, and if neglect our attire, it will accuse us of being cheap and stingy. Good humor will be called frivolity and mortification sullenness. Thus the world looks at us with an evil eye and we can never please it. It exaggerates our imperfections and claims they are sins, turns our venial sins into mortal sins and changes our sins of weakness into sins of malice.”
“The world always thinks evil and when it can’t condemn our acts it will condemn our intentions. Whether the sheep have horns or not and whether they are white or black, the wolf won’t hesitate to eat them if he can. Whatever we do, the world will wage war on us. If we stay a long time in the confessional, it will wonder how we can so much to say; if we stay only a short time, it will say we haven’t told everything…The world holds us to be fools; let us hold it to be mad.” (IDL, Part IV, Chapter 2, pp. 236-237)
Damned if you do and damned if you don’t? Well, then, why not be damned (by people who don’t know better) for doing what is virtuous, right and good?
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(September 19, 2024: Thursday, Twenty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time)
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“She has shown great love...”
Throughout the history of great ideas, great inventions or great movements, often times what makes an idea, invention or movement great is the fact that nobody else had ever thought of doing it.
Such is the example in today’s Gospel selection from Luke. On the face of it, wiping and anointing the feet of an important guest – an expression of great respect and reverence – was something that in Jesus’ day one might simply have been taken for granted. As it turns out, someone did indeed take it for granted.
Someone described as “a sinful woman”.
She made her way into this august gathering with no invitation (no small achievement in itself) and proceeded to do what nobody else thought to do: through ritual action, she expressed her respect and reverence for Jesus by washing and anointing his feet. She might have been a great sinner in the minds of other people, but in the mind of God her sinfulness was only superseded by her great love.
Today, sinners though we are, how might we show great love?
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(September 20, 2024: Andrew Kim Taejŏn, Priest, Paul Chong Ha-sang and Companions, Martyrs)
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“Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep…”
First Fruits are a religious offering of the first agricultural produce of the harvest. In classical Greek, Roman, Hebrew and Christian religions, the first fruits were given to priests to offer to God. First Fruits were often a primary source of income to maintain the religious leaders as well as their places of worship…” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Fruits)
First Fruits – the very First Fruits of the harvest – are things that many peoples offer to God before making use of any subsequent harvest for themselves. In today’s first reading from First Corinthians, Paul suggests that in the person of Jesus, First Fruits have taken on a whole new meaning: Jesus is the First Fruits of the New Covenant that God offers to us! The First Fruits of the Resurrection are something that God has set aside for us.
And continues to do so.
In his Introduction to the Devout Life, Francis de Sales wrote:
“When he created things, God commanded plants to bring forth their fruits – each one according to its kind. In like manner God commands Christians, the living plants of the Church, to bring forth the fruits of devotion, each according to one’s position and vocation.” (IDL, Part I, Chapter 3, p. 43)
What better way for us to express our gratitude for the First Fruits of divine life and love embodied in the person of Jesus than by sharing our fruits of devotion with one another? First!
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(September 21, 2024: Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist)
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“Live in a manner worthy of the call you have received…”
In his book This Saint’s for You, Thomas Craughwell writes:
“During the Roman Empire, tax collecting was one of the most lucrative jobs a person could have. With the emperor’s tacit approval, collectors were free to wring all they could from their district’s taxpayers and then keep a portion of the proceeds for themselves. Caesar didn’t mind the profiteering as long as the total assessed tax was delivered to his treasury. But Jewish taxpayers forced to pay the exorbitant sums weren’t quite so forgiving, especially when the tax collector was a fellow Jew, like Matthew. Jewish tax collectors were regarded as loathsome collaborators and extortionists who exploited their own people. It’s little wonder, then, that in the Gospels tax collectors are placed on par with harlots, thieves, and other shameless public sinners.”
“Matthew collected taxes in Capernaum, a town in the northern province of Galilee and the site of a Roman garrison. Christ was a frequent visitor there, performing such miracles as healing the centurion’s servant, curing Peter’s ailing mother-in-law, and raising Jairus’ daughter form the dead. One day, while passing the customs house where Matthew was busy squeezing extra shekels from his neighbors, Christ paused to say, ‘Follow me.’ That was all it took to touch Matthew’s heart. He walked out of the customs house forever, giving up his life as a cheat to become an apostle, the author of a Gospel and eventually a martyr.” (Page 12)
Just when Matthew thought he had it made – just when he thought he was living la vita loca – Christ changed his life by calling him to live in a manner worthy of what God had in mind for him. Matthew – who clearly recognized an opportunity when he saw one – dropped everything he had valued up until that very moment to follow Jesus. And the rest, as they say, is history.
It’s amazing to consider how a handful of words can change the trajectory of one’s life. A few words from Jesus transformed Matthew from being a human being who was all about taking from others into a man who was all about giving to others - even to the point of giving his very life.
Today, how might God’s words invite us to change and to transform our lives?
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Daily Reflections: September 8 - September 14
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(September 8, 2024: Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time)
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“Show no partiality as you adhere to the faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ.
Listen to what Francis de Sales has to say on this topic. (Introduction Part III, Chapter 36)
“If we like a certain practice, we despise everyone else and oppose everything that is not to our taste. If someone is poor-looking or if we have taken a dislike to that person, we find fault with everything that person does: we never stop plaguing that person and are always looking for an opportunity to run that person down. On the contrary, if we like someone because of their good looks, there isn’t anything that person does that we aren’t willing to overlook.”
“In general, we prefer the rich to the poor…we even prefer those who are better dressed. We rigorously demand out own rights but want others to be considerate when insisting on theirs. We maintain our rank with exactness, but we want others to be humble and accommodating when it comes to theirs. We complain very easily about our neighbor, but our neighbors must never complain about us. What we do for others always seems like such a big deal, but what others do for us seems like nothing at all.”
“In short, we have two hearts. We have a mild, gracious and courteous attitude toward ourselves and another that is hard, severe, and rigorous toward our neighbor. We have two weights: one to weigh goods to our won greatest possible advantage and another, to weigh to our neighbor’s greatest possible disadvantage.”
This is the essence of discriminating against others “in our hearts:” to live with two hearts, to live by a double standard. As James says, when we set ourselves up as judge (and jury) of our neighbor while failing to use the same standard on ourselves, we “hand down corrupt decisions.”
On the other hand, God shows no partiality. As people made in God’s image and likeness, neither should we. How can we remedy our tendency to prefer some people over others? On this matter, Francis de Sales is crystal clear and unambiguous.
“Be just and equitable in all your actions. Always put yourself in your neighbor’s place and your neighbor in yours and you will judge justly. Imagine yourself the seller when you buy and the buyer when you sell and you will sell and buy justly…This is the touchstone of all reason.”
Well, isn’t that reason enough to do our level best to show no partiality when it comes to the things of God, and in giving our neighbor his or her due?
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(September 9, 2024: Peter Claver, Priest)
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“It is widely reported that you are inflated with pride; should you not rather have been sorrowful?”
Sadness is something that most of us avoid at all costs. When it comes to making progress in the spiritual life, however, sadness is not necessarily always a bad thing. In fact, it can actually be a good thing! In his Introduction to the Devout Life, Francis de Sales observed:
“Sorrow that is according to God produces penance that surely tends to salvation, whereas the sorrow that is according to the world produces death,’ says St. Paul. Sorrow, then, can be either good or evil according to its different ways of affecting us. True enough, it produces more bad effects than good for it has only two good effects, namely, compassion and contrition, whereas it has six evil effects, namely, anxiety, sloth, wrath, jealousy, envy and impatience.” (IDL, Part IV, Chapter 12, p. 253)
The kind of sorrow that both St. Paul and Francis de Sales are advocating is one that flows from the acknowledgment of our sins and weaknesses in ways that don’t disable us. This acknowledgement is not a ‘woe is me” sorrow that simply deprives us of the energy we need to make changes in our lives.
Is there something about your life right now of which you’re not proud? If so, don’t reach for a sorrow that simply makes you wallow in your suffering, but reach for a sorrow that helps you to do something to change the cause of your suffering.
And experience the “penance that surely leads to salvation.”
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(September 10, 2024: Tuesday, Twenty-third Week in Ordinary Time)
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“Can it be that there is no one among you wise enough to be able to settle a case between brothers?”
“Litigation (that is, the conduct of a lawsuit) is as old as civilized history. Evidence of trials exists in the hieroglyphic stone tablets of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, the scrolls of Rome and Greece, and even the ideographs of the Chinese dynasties. The ancient Romans allowed law to be practiced directly by the “citizen,” without the necessity of a representative—a crude practice that was abolished, coincidentally, shortly before the fall of the empire. Likewise, the third century Chinese scholar Shao Chin Tse-Tse wrote in his seminal history of the Tang Dynasty, Ten Percent Fruit Juice, “The way of Confucius required that all disputes be brought before the Emperor by representatives of noble lineage...” (http://www.publishlawyer.com/history.htm)
And what exactly is a lawsuit?
“A lawsuit (or much less commonly a “suit in law”) is a civil action brought in a court of law in which a plaintiff - a party who claims to have incurred loss as a result of a defendant's actions - demands a legal or equitable remedy. The defendant is required to respond to the plaintiff's complaint. If the plaintiff is successful, judgment will be given in the plaintiff's favor, and a variety of court orders may be issued to enforce a right, award damages, or impose a temporary or permanent injunction to prevent an act or compel an act. A declaratory judgment may be issued to prevent future legal disputes. Although not as common, a lawsuit may also refer to a criminal action, criminal proceeding, or criminal claim.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawsuit)
We’ve all suffered injustice at the hands of another person. We’ve all been the victim of someone else’s deceit or deception. We’ve all been cheated, betrayed or defrauded by someone else. We need to address these wrongs, and in extreme cases, we may even need to seek remedies through litigation. But setting aside the extremes cases, might it not be far better on any given day to try to resolve our claims in the court of common sense before resorting to the court of law?
Before choosing litigation, how about first trying reconciliation?
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(September 11, 2024: Wednesday, Twenty-third Week in Ordinary Time)
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“The world in its present form is passing away ...”
The Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, is famous for this dictum: “The only constant is change”. In a letter to Madame de Chantal, Francis de Sales penned a similar sentiment when he wrote:
“I see that all of the seasons of the year converge in your soul: at times you experience all the dryness, distraction, disgust and boredom of winter; at other times, all the dew and fragrance of the little flowers in May time; and again, the warmth of a desire to please God. All that remains is autumn, and you say that you do not see much of its fruit. Yet it often happens that in threshing the wheat and pressing the grapes we discover more than the harvest or vintage promised. You would like it to be always spring or summer; but no, dear daughter, we have to experience interior as well as exterior changes. Only in heaven will everything be springtime as to beauty, autumn as to enjoyment and summer as to love. There will be no winter there; but here below we need winter so that we may practice self-denial and the countless small but beautiful virtues that can be practiced during a barren season. Let us go on our little way; so long as we mean well and hold on to our resolve, we can only be on the right track…” (LSD, p. 148)
Whether we realize it or not, the world in its present form is always passing away, because no two days, hours or moments are precisely the same. For that matter, neither are we and/or other people with whom we are engaged in a variety of relationships on any given day. While change is not always easy for us, change is at the core of what it means to be human, and change appears to be quite good for us.
Perhaps change is the only constant, after all, but with one notable exception. The love that God has for us - that never changes!
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(September 12, 2018: Thursday, Twenty-third Week in Ordinary Time)
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“The measure you measure will in return be measured back to you.”
In his Introduction to the Devout Life, Francis de Sales wrote:
“Be just and equitable in all your actions. Always put yourself in your neighbor’s place and place your neighbor in yours, then you will judge rightly. Imagine yourself the seller when you buy and imagine yourself the buyer when you sell – then you will sell and buy justly. A person loses nothing by living generously, nobly, courteously and with a royal, just and reasonable heart…This is the touchstone of true reason.” (IDL, Part III, Chapter 36, p. 217)
Francis tells us we lose nothing by measuring generously when it comes to how we deal with our brothers and sisters. Jesus goes one step further – generosity toward others offers us the promise of eternal life for ourselves…and then some!
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(September 13, 2024: Friday, Twenty-third Week in Ordinary Time)
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“What then is my recompense? That, when I preach, I offer the Gospel free of charge so as not to make full use of my right in the Gospel.”
Not to put too fine a point on it, but preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ – be it preaching in word or preaching in deed – is its own reward.
Or, at least, it should be!
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(September 14, 2024: Exultation of the Holy Cross)
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“He humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.”
In a sermon preached on the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, Francis de Sales remarked:
“St. Paul, the outstanding master and teacher of the newborn Church, discovered in the crucified Christ the blissful wellspring of his love, the theme of his sermons, the source of his boasting, the goal of all his ambitions in this world and the anchor of all his hopes for the world to come. I had no thought, he says, of bringing you any other knowledge than that of Jesus Christ, and of him crucified. God forbid that I should make a display of anything, except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ…” (Pulpit and Pew: A Study in Salesian Preaching)
The cross of Christ is the core of our lives. The cross of Christ is the central image of our faith. The cross of Christ is the path to our salvation.
Still, no less than five times in the synoptic Gospels, Jesus makes it very clear - if we wish to be his disciples, we must be willing to pick up not his cross but pick up our own cross. We are not called to carry his cross, but ours. Put another way, we imitate the power and the promise of the cross of Christ precisely by being willing to embrace the crosses — the challenges, the burdens, the setbacks — that are part and parcel of our lives.
In short, the cross that we carry is the need to be ourselves — not somebody else — and to take all that comes with that effort.
Many of the crosses we carry are specific to the state and stage of life in which we find ourselves. Francis de Sales offers the following examples of the kinds of crosses that we might be asked to carry.
“To the pastors of the Church I offer a cross of care and labor, a shepherd’s toil to protect, to feed, to correct and perfect the flock. This was the cross first carried by our Lord who called himself the Good Shepherd: witness his journeys, his fatigue by Jacob’s well, his loving care for those who treated him badly.” (Ibid)
“To religious I offer the cross of solitude, celibacy and unworldliness. It is a cross that has touched the True Cross; it is a cross that was carried by Our Lady, the holiest, most innocent and completely crucified of all who ever loved the cross for Christ.” (Ibid)
“To those serving in government, I present the cross of learning, fairness and the sincerity of truth: a cross worthy of those who, St. Paul says, are in God’s service. Such a cross is ideal for crucifying merely secular values, for repressing self-interest: it encourages peace and quiet in the realm.” (Ibid)
“To workers, I offer the cross of humility and labor, a cross sanctified by our Lord himself in the carpenter’s shop. The cross of daily work is often a sure way to salvation; it may also be the best means of avoiding sin, for the devil finds work for idle hands.” (Ibid)
“For teenagers I have chosen the cross of obedience, purity and self-discipline. It will crucify the young blood of passion that is just coming to a boil: the boldness of youth still awaiting the guiding hand of prudence. It will teach them to bear the easy yoke of Christ in whatever calling in life God may place them.” (Ibid)
“For old people there is the cross of patience, gentleness and a helpful attitude towards the young. This cross demands a brave heart. They have learned that swift as a breath our lives pass away…” (Ibid)
“There is no shortage of crosses for married folk, but perhaps I could single out the cross of mutual support and faithfulness, and the cross of bringing up a family…” (Ibid)
There is but one cross of Jesus Christ. For us, however, our crosses come in many shapes, sizes and situations.
What cross might Christ asking us to carry today?
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Daily Reflections: September 1 - September 7
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(September 1, 2024: Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time)
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“Be doers of the word and not hearers only, deluding yourselves.”
Traditions are powerful things. Whether they deal with the making of Grandmother's special casserole for our Thanksgiving meal, with the relative who hosts for Christmas and Easter, with those we accompany on family vacation, with rituals around the death of a loved one, or with something so simple as who sits where around the dinner table. Traditions are part and parcel of all of our lives. When they are positive ones, traditions can give us a sense of identity, stability and value when our lives are filled with change.
But traditions can be negative too; especially when they become detached from the values they were meant to support and protect. Jesus knew that fact all too well as today's gospel account suggests. He challenged the Pharisees in their use of the laws regarding ritual purity. Jesus saw them using the traditions to judge others unfairly as being “in” or “out” of the circle of God's mercy and love, as if they - and not God - were the determiners of righteousness and religious worthiness!
God's Word this Sunday certainly challenges us to look at the power of tradition(s) in our lives. If they are positive, then we should continue to make them part of our lives. But if they are negative behaviors or even attitudes - old grudges we just can't forget, old hurts we just can't forgive, old patterns of destructive choosing or thinking that we just can't seem to escape - then, with the grace of God already “planted within us,” we need to do something different to change them.
St. Francis de Sales suggests, when these old negative “traditions” make us less than the child of God we are redeemed to be, that we concentrate on the “present moment.” We are not defined by our past nor can we do anything about it except forgive it. The future is yet to be. But what we do have is the here and now - the present moment - and the grace of God in that moment.
It is only in the present moment that we can replace old negative behaviors and attitudes with new, life affirming ones. When we concentrate on accessing the power of God planted within us to make new choices “present moment” to “present moment,” we are well on our way to starting new, positive “traditions” which will sustain us now and mold us for the future, as people who “do justice and live in the presence of the Lord.”
Today, with God's grace, let us start a new tradition of living in the “present moment.” That's a tradition worth keeping over time…even for a lifetime!
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(September 2, 2024: Labor Day)
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In today’s Gospel, Jesus describes the nature and focus of his labor in the words from the prophet Isaiah:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring glad tidings to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.”
Labor Day offers us a great opportunity to reflect upon the great work to which each of us is called – to continue the creating, healing and inspiring action of Jesus Christ in the lives of others in ways that fit the state and stage of life in which we find ourselves. Eucharistic Prayer IV in the former Sacramentary (supplanted by the Roman Missal) put it this way:
“Father, we acknowledge your greatness: all your actions show your wisdom and love. You formed man in your own likeness and set him over the whole world to serve you, his creator, and to rule over all creatures…To the poor he proclaimed the good news of salvation, to prisoners, freedom, and to those in sorrow, joy…And that we might live no longer for ourselves but for him, he sent the Holy Spirit from you, Father, as his first gift to those who believe, to complete his work on earth…”
On this Labor Day, how might we continue Christ’s work in our little corner of the world?
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(September 3, 2024: Tuesday, Twenty-second Week in Ordinary Time)
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“We have the mind of Christ…”
What does it mean to “have the mind of Christ”? What does the “mind of Christ” look like?
Today’s Gospel certainly provides a practical answer, powerfully portrayed!
Look how Jesus used his God-given power - the power of both word and action. He didn’t use it for his own self-aggrandizement. On the contrary, Jesus used it for the benefit of others. If his audience was “astonished at his teaching,” one can only imagine how astonished they must have been when Jesus expelled an unclean demon from a man in the synagogue! Jesus’ “one-two punch” approach to preaching – employing both word and action – stood in stark contrast to the preaching of the Pharisees, Sadducees and Scribes which Jesus himself criticized as being too long on words and too short on action.
What does it look like when “we have the mind of Christ”? The answer - when we both speak like Christ and act like Christ, that is, when we not only wish people well – in words – but also we do what we can – in actions – to make our wish for others’ welfare a reality.
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(September 4, 2024: Wednesday, Twenty-second Week in Ordinary Time)
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“We are God’s co-workers…”
In his Treatise on the Love of God, Francis de Sales wrote:
“God acts in our works, and we co-operate in God’s action. God leaves for our part all the merit and profit of our services and good works; we leave God all the honor and praise thereof, acknowledging that the growth, the progress, and the end of all the good we do depend on God’s mercy, finishing what God had begun. O God, how merciful is God’s goodness to us in thus distributing his bounty!” (TLG, Book XI, Chapter 6, p. 212)
It would be enough if God simply made us the recipients of his mercy and generosity, but in his wisdom, God has also made us the agents or instruments of his mercy and generosity. Our common vocation is not simply limited to enjoying the gift of creation, but rather we are called to nurture it, care for it, shepherd it and develop it! God works in and through us; we work in and through God’s action. To us come all of the benefits, but to God goes all of the glory.
Who could ask for a better arrangement than that?
We are – in word and in deed – God’s co-workers. We celebrate both God’s generosity to us and share that generosity with others.
Today, how might God employ our cooperation in both receiving – and sharing – his bounty?
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(September 5, 2024: Thursday, Twenty-second Week in Ordinary Time)
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“If anyone among you considers himself wise, let him become a fool, so as to become wise…”
This apparent paradox – wisdom as foolishness, foolishness as wisdom – is found in both the Old and New Testaments. Of course, it is “worldly” wisdom that is foolish, whereas divine “foolishness” is, in truth, authentic wisdom. Put another way, when our “wisdom” makes us the center of the universe, we are truly the most foolish of men. By contrast, when we are so “foolish” as to make God the center of the universe, it is only then that we can hope to become truly wise.
Francis de Sales was no stranger to this paradox. In his Introduction to the Devout Life, he wrote:
“We recognize genuine goodness as we do genuine balm. If balm sinks down and stays at the bottom when dropped into water, it is rated the best and most valuable. So also, in order to know whether a person is truly wise, learned, generous and noble, we must observe whether his abilities tend to humility, modesty, and obedience for in that case they will be truly good. If they float on the surface and seek to show themselves they are so much less genuine insofar as they are showier. People’s virtues and fine qualities when conceived and nurtured by pride, show and vanity have the mere appearance of good without juice, marrow and solidity. Honors, dignities and rank are like saffron, which thrives best and grows most plentifully when trodden under foot. It is no honor to be handsome if a person prizes himself for it; if beauty is to have good grace, it should be unstudied. Learning dishonors us when it inflates our minds and degenerates into mere pedantry. Just as honor is an excellent thing when given to us freely, so, too, it becomes base when demanded, sought after and asked for.” (IDL, Part III, Chapter 4, pp. 132-133)
So, ask yourself the question: “Does my wisdom inflate my mind, or does it tend to humility, modesty and obedience?” If your answer is the former, you may be far more foolish than you know. By contrast, if your answer is the latter, you may be far wiser than you ever thought possible.
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(September 6, 2024: Friday, Twenty-second Week in Ordinary Time)
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“Do not make any judgment before the appointed time…”
In his Introduction to the Devout Life, Francis de Sales makes a direct reference to this admonition from St. Paul, when he wrote:
“‘No,’ says the Apostle, ‘judge not before the time until the Lord comes, when He will bring to light the hidden things of darkness and will make manifest the counsel of hearts.’ The judgments of the children of men are rash because they are not the judges of one another, and when they pass judgments on others they usurp the office of the Lord. They are rash because the principal malice of sin depends on the intention and counsel of the heart, and to us they are the hidden things of darkness. They are rash because every man has enough on which he ought to judge himself without taking it upon him to judge his neighbor. To avoid future judgment, it is equally necessary both to refrain from judging others and to judge ourselves.” (IDL, Part III, Chapter 28, pp. 196-197)
Note that Paul is willing to go even a step further than St. Francis de Sales when it comes to making judgments. The former goes so far as to say, “I do not even pass judgment on myself”. In the big scheme of things, each of us has more than enough on his plate each day just trying to live our lives as best we can without spending extra time and energy (that we really do not have) judging ourselves and others. Besides, who are we to judge? As both St. Paul and St. Francis de Sales point out, it is God who is the one and only just judge.
Just today, try and remember this admonition: whether toward others or ourselves, judging is simply above our pay grade.
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(September 7, 2024: Saturday, Twenty-second Week in Ordinary Time)
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“Have you not read what David did when he and those who were with him were hungry? How he went into the house of God, took the bread of offering, which only the priests could lawfully eat, ate of it, and shared it with his companions?”
In today’s Gospel, some Pharisees accused Jesus’ disciples of breaking the Sabbath by picking heads of grain in order to feed themselves. The Pharisees seem to suggest that in life you have to choose between what is reasonable and what is right. As he frequently did, Jesus turned the Pharisees’ rationale on its head by suggesting that often times that which is most reasonable is most lawful.
In the Salesian tradition, we know this position as “liberty of spirit”. In a letter to St. Jane de Chantal, Francis cites examples in an attempt to describe this “liberty of spirit”:
“Take the case of Cardinal Borromeo. He was one of the most precise, unbending and austere men imaginable. He lived on bread and water, He was so strict that after he became archbishop, he only visited his brothers’ homes twice in twenty-four years, and in those cases only because they were ill. He only went into his own garden twice. Nevertheless, this strict man, who often accepted invitations from his Swiss neighbors in the hope of winning them back to the truth, made no difficulty about drinking a couple of healths or toasts with them at every meal, over and above what he needed to still his thirst. Here you see the trait of a holy liberty in one of the most austere men of our times. A lax person would have overdone it, a scrupulous mind would have feared committing mortal sin, but a true liberty of spirit does it out of love.”
“Bishop Spiridion of old once took in a famished pilgrim during the season of Lent. There was nothing available to eat except salt meat, so the bishop had some cooked and served it to the pilgrim. The visitor did not want to take the meat in spite of his hunger, so, out of charity Spiridion ate some first so as to remove the pilgrim’s scruples by his example. Here we see the loving freedom of a holy man. In another example, Ignatius Loyola ate meat on Wednesday in Holy Week because the doctor ordered it and thought it expedient for some trouble that Ignatius was having. A person of scrupulous mind would have contested this point for at least a good three days.” (Stopp, Selected Letters, p. 73)
Consumed as they were about not breaking any laws, the Pharisees almost always placed this concern heads and shoulders above meeting the needs of others. By contrast, Jesus was convinced that meeting the needs of others was the fulfillment of the law. Francis de Sales put it this way (in all caps, by the way!):
LOVE AND NOT FORCE SHOULD INSPIRE ALL YOU DO;
LOVE OBEDINECE MORE THAN YOU FEAR DISOBEDIENCE
By all means, try your level best to observe God’s Law today. And above all, try your level best to observe the greatest of all God’s Laws – the Law of Love.
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Spirituality Matters: August 25 - August 31
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(August 25, 2024: Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time)
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“Decide today whom you will serve.”
Our worlds change - sometimes constantly. We might tend to think of the “changing world” as something only outside or beyond ourselves. But sometimes the most difficult world to accept with all its changes is the world within each of us, the one with turmoil and vicissitudes that perhaps are known only to ourselves.
Today, we speak of the importance of making good decisions and choices. Everyone wants to be free. Everyone wants autonomy. Well, certainly God wants us to have that freedom as well, as it is the most dramatic and far-reaching gift he has given us. In the first reading today, Joshua addresses this freedom head on: “Decide today whom you will serve”. That’s about as direct and as contemporary a message that we could have. What do you want? Well, decide! There is no room for the wishy-washy in Joshua’s approach. There is also no doubt where he stands: “As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”
Paul confronts the same issue in his letter on married life: “Be subordinate to one another out of reverence for Christ.” This opening statement is critical because without it the later advice to be subservient could appear demeaning or even appalling. The ‘subordination’ to which the Christian is called is always presented within and because of love – Christ’s love. The love of Christ is why we serve others, and put ourselves at least second, if not literally last. Christ loved us first and showed us the way to life. To put others first, especially in a relationship – or in a family – is the only way to have life, and to share life, to the full.
It is also the only way to make love truly life-giving.
This teaching of Christ can be “hard”, and the early followers of Christ found it so, but like Peter in the Gospel, when all is said and done, “to whom shall we go?” Again and again, the losses and trials of life affirm that only He has “the words of eternal life”.
Francis de Sales reminds us that instability in life is inevitable, and it is our failure to recognize the truth that makes us unstable and changeable in our moods. He encourages us to remain firm and steadfast in our resolutions. The challenge of our changing world
“within” is one of constancy. And that constancy is achieved by fidelity to the decisions we make in daily life to love and serve the Lord and one another – the very resolution with which we close every liturgy.
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(August 26, 2021: Monday, Twenty-first Week in Ordinary Time)
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“We ought to thank God always for you, brothers and sisters, as is fitting, because your faith flourishes ever more, and the love of every one of you for one another grows ever greater.”
You can hear the happiness in Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians. His joy flows from reminding himself of the “work of faith and labor of love” in the members of that early faith community.
In his Treatise on the Love of God, Francis de Sales wrote:
“When our mind is raised above the natural light of reason and begins to see the sacred truth of faith, O God, what joy ensues! The holy light of faith is filled with delight!” (Select Salesian Subjects, #0263, p. 58)
What a contrast with how Jesus describes the scribes and Pharisees! Their faith produces no good works; their love is lacking. Their faith is anything but happy. Jesus simply describes what is painfully obvious about them in his litany of “woes” that begin with today’s Gospel and continue thorough Wednesday’s Gospel. In a word, these people were just plain miserable.
How do people experience the gift of faith in us? Are we sources of happiness – or woe – in the lives of others?
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(August 27, 2024: Monica)
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“May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who has loved us and given us everlasting encouragement and good hope through his grace, encourage your hearts and strengthen them in every good deed and word.
“St. Monica was married by arrangement to a pagan official in North Africa, who was much older than she, and although generous, was also violent tempered. His mother lived with them and was equally difficult, which proved a constant challenge to St. Monica. She had three children; Augustine, Navigius, and Perpetua. Through her patience and prayers, she was able to convert her husband and his mother to the Christian faith in 370. He died a year later. Perpetua and Navigius entered the religious life. St. Augustine was much more difficult, as she had to pray for him for seventeen years, begging the prayers of priests who - for a while - tried to avoid her because of her persistence at this seemingly hopeless endeavor. One priest did attempt to encourage her by saying, ‘It is not possible that the son of so many tears should perish.’ This thought, coupled with a vision that she had received, strengthened her in her prayers and hopes for her son. Finally, St. Augustine was baptized by St. Ambrose in 387. St. Monica died later that same year in the Italian town of Ostia, on the way back to Africa from Rome.” (http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=1)
We can all relate to Saint Monica. We all have people in our lives for whom we want the best. We all have people in our lives that we want to be happy. We all have people in our lives about whom we have concerns and heartaches. Of course, as much as we might love someone else, we cannot live their lives for them. Sometimes, the most we can do is to pray for them, encourage them and support them. As for the rest, we need to leave it in the hands of God, trusting that God will bring about the good when the appointed hour has come.
Notwithstanding that she was his mother, Monica knew that her son had to find his own way. Rather than attempt to control her son, she placed all her cares, concerns and hopes into the hands – and the heart – of a loving God.
With remarkable results.
How might we imitate her example as it relates to our loved ones for whom we want nothing but the very best?
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(August 28, 2024: Augustine, Bishop and Doctor of the Church)
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“For you know how one must imitate us. For we did not act in a disorderly way among you…”
“This famous son of St. Monica was born in Africa and spent many years of his life in wicked living and in false beliefs. Though he was one of the most intelligent men who ever lived and though he had been raised a Christian, his sins of impurity and his pride closed his mind to divine truth. Through the prayers of his holy mother and the marvelous preaching of St. Ambrose, Augustine gradually became convinced that Christianity was indeed the one true faith. Yet he did not become a Christian even then, because he thought he could never live a pure life.”
“One day, however, he heard about two men who had suddenly been converted after reading the life of St. Antony, and he felt terribly ashamed of himself. ‘What are we doing?’ he cried to his friend Alipius. ‘Unlearned people are taking heaven by force, while we, with all our knowledge, are so cowardly that we keep rolling around in the mud of our sins!’ Full of bitter sorrow, Augustine cried out to God, ‘How long more, O Lord? Why does not this hour put an end to my sins?’ Just then he heard a child singing, ‘Take up and read!’ Thinking that God intended him to hear those words, he picked up the book of the Letters of St. Paul and read the first passage upon which his gaze fell. It was just what Augustine needed, for in it, St. Paul said to put away all impurity and to live in imitation of Jesus. That did it! From then on, Augustine began a new life.(http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=418)
In his Letter to the Thessalonians, that same Paul who had such a powerful influence in the life of Augustine challenges us to avoid living in a disorderly way, although – as we see so clearly in the life of Saint Augustine – that doesn’t necessarily happen overnight. For most of us, learning to walk in orderly ways takes a long time – in fact, it takes a lifetime.
Today, ask yourself – how am I doing?
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(August 29, 2024: Passion of John the Baptist)
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In his Treatise on the Love of God, Francis de Sales wrote:
“All the martyrs died for divine love. When we say that many of them died for the faith, we must not imply that it was for a ‘dead faith’ but rather for a living faith, that is, faith animated by charity. Moreover, our confession of faith is not so much an act of the intellect as an act of the will and love of God. For this reason, on the day of the Passion the great St. Peter preserved his faith in his soul – but lost charity – since he refused in words to admit as Master Him whom in his heart he acknowledged to be such. But there are other martyrs who died expressly for charity alone. Such was the Savior’s great Precursor who suffered martyrdom because he gave fraternal correction…” (TLG, Book VII, Chapter 10, pp. 40-41)
We see in John the Baptist a person who was faithful to his unique vocation. As the herald of Jesus both before and after the latter’s baptism in the Jordan, John respected, honored and loved the Lord, as well as the things, values and standards of the Lord. His willingness to tend to the affairs entrusted to him by God impelled him to confront Herod on his immoral lifestyle (taking his brother’s wife to be his own) in a very public forum. Obviously, minding his own affairs didn’t happen in a vacuum – it impacted other people as well. In the end, doing his job – being faithful to his appointed tasks – cost John his life.
John didn’t lose his head over some mere intellectual principle: he gave it because of something he believed from – and in – the depth of his heart. How far are we willing to go for the things, the values and the people that we hold deeply in our hearts, presuming, of course, we possess such deep, heartfelt convictions?
Today, on what issues – and for whom – are we willing to stand firm, whatever the cost?
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(August 30, 2024: Friday, Twenty-first Week in Ordinary Time)
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“For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.”
In the book Saints are not Sad (1949,) we read
“Holiness, in Francis de Sales’ conception of it, should be an all-around quality without abruptness or eccentricity. It should not involve the suppression in us of anything that is not in itself bad, for the likeness to God which is its essence must be incomplete in the proportion that it does not extend to the whole of us. So we must be truthful to ourselves and about ourselves, and we shall lose as much by not seeing the good that really is in us as by fancying that we see good that is not there at all. It is as right and due that we should thank God for the virtue that His grace has established in us as that we should ask His forgiveness for our sinfulness that hinders His grace.” (Select Salesian Subjects, # 0377, p. 85)
God calls us to holiness. God calls us to walk in his ways. Imperfect as we are, we can make great progress in this quest by accepting the grace of God, by putting God’s grace to work in action and by relying on the love, support and encouragement of others. This call to holiness also challenges us to be truthful with ourselves and about ourselves - to recognize what is good in us, as well as anything in us needing to be purified. While we will always be imperfect – while we will always be reminded of our weakness – we don’t need to be perfect to strive for perfection.
Today, how can the “foolishness of God” help us to become sources of God’s strength today? Today, how can God help us to transform our weakness into greatness in the service of others today?
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(August 31, 2024: Saturday, Twenty-first Week in Ordinary Time)
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“After a long time, the master of those servants came back and settled accounts with them…”
In today’s Gospel Jesus issues what law enforcement professionals refer to as a “BOLO”: Be on the Lookout! Stay awake! Watch out, for you know “neither the day nor the hour” when the master will return and settle up with his servants.
For reasons that are obvious, the early Christians – and we later Christians – almost always (and perhaps, even exclusively) associate this “BOLO” with a warning to be on the lookout for the end of the world, be it globally (everybody’s) or individually (our own). In the Salesian tradition, this “BOLO” is not limited to the “end of days” - it’s great advice for every day, especially when it comes to being on the lookout for opportunities to make good use of the talents, skills, gifts and abilities with which God has gifted us! Francis de Sales preached:
“There is no need to worry overmuch when or where we shall die; in what town or in what country we shall die; whether alone or with others we shall die. What doe sit matter? Leave it to God, for He will never fail us whether in life or in death…All we have to do is to leave ourselves to God’s providence, asking nothing and refusing nothing: that is the essence of human perfection. Don’t ask God for death; don’t refuse death when God sends it. Happy those who practice this indifference, who prepare for a happy death – whenever God should decree it – by living a good life! This is what all the saints have done. Some of them set aside a certain time each year to think about death. Some of them did it once a month, others once a week, or even every day, at a fixed time. By frequently remembering the inevitability of death, they tried to ensure a successful journey from this world to the next.” (Pulpit and Pew, pp. 290-291)
Put your God-given talents to work. Do your level best each and every day to make a good return on the investment that God has made in you. To the extent that you are faithful to this effort, the day when the master returns to settle up with you will not be filled with dread – but with rejoicing!
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Spirituality Matters: August 18 - August 24
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(August 18, 2024: Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time)
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“Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him (her).”
What a wonderful gift the Eucharist is! Jesus gives us his flesh to eat and his blood to drink. And he commands us to eat and drink of his flesh and his blood in order that we might have life - eternal life.
In today’s first reading, taken from the Book of Wisdom, Jesus invites us to the meal he has prepared for us, a meal that enables us to unite ourselves to his saving death and resurrection. On the Cross Jesus’ flesh was pierced and his blood shed for others, including for you and me. As we eat and drink, we are called to forsake foolishness that we might live and advance in the way of understanding. (Proverbs)
The words of Wisdom remind us that this meal is a sacred, covenantal meal. In Jesus, God’s great love and mercy become visible, tangible. When we eat Jesus’ body and drink his blood, we are expressing our willingness to be one with Jesus in his saving mission to the world. We announce his good news to today’s world. In this meal, we become one with Jesus and one with the community, one in the Body of Christ. As we leave this sacred meal, we are challenged to live this daily reality of our oneness.
St. Francis de Sales offers us some practical advice on how to make this manner of living happen more effectively. After Communion, he says: consider Jesus seated in your heart and bring before him each of your faculties and senses in order to hear his commands and promise him fidelity. This exercise can become our thanksgiving and our commitment to living out what we have celebrated and received. Jesus will offer us a way of using our intellect, our will, our memory, our hearing, our touching and our speaking today in a way that gives witness to God’s loving presence in the world.
St. Paul today encourages us: Watch carefully how you live, not as foolish persons but as wise persons. Our eating and drinking at the table of the Lord makes all of us one. May the wise ways in which we attempt to walk today make visible the oneness we experience in Eucharist. Remember: you are what you eat…you are what you drink.
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(August 19, 2024: Monday, Twentieth Week in Ordinary Time)
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“If you wish to be perfect, sell what you have and give to the poor…”
And the man went away sad, for he had many possessions.
Listen carefully to Jesus’ words. He doesn’t say, “Give it all to the poor.” He does say, “Give to the poor.” These words presume that what – or how much – is given to the poor is left to the individual to decide. In the case of the unnamed young man in today’s Gospel, perhaps his sadness was caused by the fact that he didn’t want to give anything away – not one bit – to the poor. If, in fact, he had many possessions. He is reluctant to share even the smallest amount of his good fortune with those less fortunate than he is, making it even more saddening.
In his Introduction to the Devout Life, Francis de Sales counseled:
“We must practice real poverty in the midst of all the goods and riches that God has given us. Frequently give up some of your property by giving it with a generous heart to the poor. To give away what we have is to impoverish ourselves in proportion as we give, and the more we give the poorer we become. It is true that God will repay us not only in the next world but even in this world…Oh, how holy and how rich is the poverty brought on by giving alms!” (IDL, Part II, Chapter 15. p. 165)
Listen carefully to Francis’ words: “Frequently give up some of your property…”
Count your blessings. Name your possessions. Be they material, like money, or non-material, like influence, time or talent. What transforms our riches into wealth is our willingness to share them with the poor, with the impoverished, with the less-fortunate and with those who have fallen on hard times.
Do you want to gain eternal life? Today then, how many – or much – of your possessions are you willing to share with anyone poor or needy?
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(August 20, 2024: Bernard, Abbot and Doctor of the Church)
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“It will be hard for one who is rich to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”
Riches themselves are not the greatest obstacle to our entering into the Kingdom of God. From a Salesian perspective, it is our desire for riches that poses the problem - the grandeur with which we protect them and the passion with which we pursue them.
In his Introduction to the Devout Life, Francis de Sales observed:
“Your heart must be open to heaven alone and impervious to riches and all other transitory things. Whatever part of them you may possess, you must keep your heart free from too strong an affection for them. Always keep your heart above riches: even when your heart is surrounded by riches, see to it that your heart remains distinct from them and master over them. Do not allow your heavenly spirit to become captive to earthly things. Let your heart remain always superior to riches and over them – not in them… I willingly grant that you may take care to increase your wealth and resources, provided this is done not only justly but also properly and charitably.” (IDL, Part III, Chapter 14, p. 163)
How can we determine if our possessions might be holding us back from the Kingdom of Heaven? Francis wrote:
“If you find your heart very desolated and devastated at the loss of anything you possess then believe me when I tell you that you love it too much. The strongest proof of how deeply we are attached to possessions is the degree of suffering we experience when we lose it.” (IDL, Part III, Chapter 14, p. 164)
Are we experiencing any difficulties as we strive to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven during our journeys here on earth? Perhaps, it is because our possessions have somehow managed to possess us!
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(August 21, 2024: Pius X, Pope)
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“Are you envious because I am generous?”
The parable in today’s Gospel certainly suggests that those who labored the longest surely were envious! They felt cheated, because as we are told, they “grumbled” –when they realized that the landowner had paid them the same amount as those who had barely worked a few hours!
In his Treatise on the Love of God, Francis de Sales counseled:
“We must be most careful not to spend much time wondering why God bestows a grace upon one person rather than another, or why God makes his favors abound on behalf of one rather than another. No, never give in to such musings. Since each of us has a sufficient – rather, an abundant measure of all things required or salvation – who in all the world can rightly complain if it pleases God to bestow his graces more largely on some than on others?” (Living Jesus, 0618, p. 246)
Of course, given how generous God is to us we would never be envious or complain about somebody else having more than we do - or would we?
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(August 22, 2024: Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary
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“Many are invited, but few are chosen...”
We are all familiar with the story of the Annunciation. An angel appears to Mary, announcing that God has chosen her to be the Mother of the Messiah. Notwithstanding a bit of foreboding and a few understandable questions that she posed to the angel; the scene ends with Mary accepting the invitation to play her role in God’s plan of salvation.
Mary’s affirmative response to God’s invitation is in stark contrast to the apathy of many portrayed in today’s Gospel parable. The “king” (obviously, God) repeatedly invites people from hill and dale to accept his invitation to attend his son’s wedding. (By extension, God is asking people to say “yes” to the power, promise and possibilities embodied in his Son, Jesus.) These people simply couldn’t care less, prompting the king to cast his net of hospitality further and further afield.
On any given day God invites each of us to play our unique role in God’s ongoing plan of salvation. Each and every day God invites us to draw nearer to the feast that is his Son, Jesus Christ.
Today, how will we respond to God’s invitation to the feast?
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(August 23, 2024: Friday, Twentieth Week in Ordinary Time)
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“Which commandment in the law is the greatest?”
The question put to Jesus in today’s Gospel is not an exercise of “Trivial Pursuit”. This question is not mere rhetoric. Ultimately, it is a question of life and death. Jesus’ answer is direct and to the point: “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all of your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
And when he describes the second as ‘like’ the first, Jesus is saying that the two commandments are essentially one in the same.
In a letter to Madame Brulart, Francis de Sales wrote:
“We must consider our neighbors. God who wishes us to love and cherish them must exercise this love of our neighbor, making our affection manifest by our actions. Although we may sometimes feel that this runs against the grain, we must not give up our efforts on that account. We ought to bring our prayers and meditations to focus on this point, for, after having asked for the love of God, we must likewise ask for the love of our neighbor.” (Living Jesus, 0618, p. 246)
Today, how can we put these two great commandments into practice?
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(August 24, 2018: Bartholomew, Apostle)
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“Your friends make known, O Lord, the glorious splendor of your Kingdom…”
In his Treatise on the Love of God, Francis de Sales wrote:
“You can see how God – by progressive stages filled with unutterable sweetness – leads the soul forward and enables it to leave the Egypt of sin. He leads it from love to love, as from dwelling to dwelling, until He has made it enter into the Promised Land. By this I mean that God brings it into most holy charity, which, to state it succinctly, is a form of friendship…Such friendship is true friendship, since it is reciprocal, for God has eternally loved all those who have loved Him, who now love Him or who will love Him in time…He has openly revealed all His secrets to us as to His closest friends…” (TLG, Book II, Chapter 22, pp. 160 - 161)
In today’s Gospel, Jesus is clear and unambiguous about the quality that makes Bartholomew (a.k.a., Nathaniel) a friend of God: “There is no guile in him.” There is no pretense in Bartholomew – nothing fake, nothing phony. Jesus sees him as a man who is real, authentic and transparent. In other words, Jesus is an open book.
In his Introduction to the Devout Life, Francis de Sales offered some practical advice regarding how to practice the virtue of guilelessness.
“Your language should be retrained, frank, sincere, candid unaffected and honest…As the sacred Scripture tells us, The Holy Spirit does not dwell in a deceitful or tricky soul. No artifice is so good and desirable as plain dealing. Worldly prudence and carnal artifice belong to the children of this world, but the children (the friends) of God walk a straight path and their hearts are without guile.” (IDL, Part III, Chapter 30, p. 206)
Today, do you want to be a friend of God? Then, Like Bartholomew, strive to be guileless. Simply try to be yourself – nothing more and nothing less.
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Spirituality Matters: August 11th - August 17th
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“Get rid of all bitterness, anger, harsh words, slander and malice of every kind. In place of these be kind, compassionate and mutually forgiving.”
“In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God. The Word was God. Through the Word God made all things; not one thing in creation was made without the Word.”
Just as the Word who is Jesus Christ is the source of all power, so too, our words are powerful. At their best, our words feed, heal and create. At their worst, our words choke, injure and destroy. St. Paul certainly knew this truth. St. Francis de Sales also knew this truth.
And we know this, too.
St. Francis de Sales observed that negative speech breeds “disdain for one’s neighbor, pride, self-satisfaction and a hundred other very pernicious effects, among them the greatest pest of conversation, slander”. He continued: “Slander is a kind of murder…whoever removed slander from the world would remove a great part of its sins and injustice as well”.
Using words that are “kind, compassionate and mutually forgiving” isn’t just a matter of being nice. No, it’s a matter of justice. It is about giving people their due; it’s about giving people respect and it’s about recognizing people’s God-given dignity. Ultimately, it’s about using the power of our God-given ability that is embodied in language in ways that build up – not tear down – the people of God.
Salesian spirituality is known for its practicality. What could be more practical than using words that help to build up, encourage and support one another? What is more readily available for us to give one another than the words we speak? Even when we need to challenge or correct others, we should still speak in such a way that ultimately promotes healing. Our tongues, says St. Francis “ought to be like a scalpel in the hand of a surgeon who is cutting between nerves and tendons.” St. Jane de Chantal observes: “When you need to correct someone, make it in private and with kindness.”
In the beginning was the Word. May our words continue the story of God’s creative, redemptive and life-giving love. May God’s Word be for all of us the last word. May God’s Word – the Word that gives life – be all the words that we ever need. Beginning today!
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In the Introduction to the book, Francis de Sales, Jane de Chantal: Letters of Spiritual Direction, we read:
“Jane de Chantal continued with her work of overseeing the large family of religious to whom she was the chief spiritual mother. She wrote ardent letters to superiors, novice-mistresses and novices which reflect her struggle to institute a way in which the authentic Salesian spirit might come to be observed everywhere.”
“In her letters of spiritual direction (where her concern was to stay close to the very Salesian spirit of beginning right where one is and with the facts at hand, Jane de Chantal continued to show herself as a masterful director of souls. She brought to this task her own life-experience and temperament. The experience of motherhood was chief among those experiences. Since her youth she had been engaged in the art of biological mothering, and since midlife she had exercised her spiritual maternity. The correspondence she maintained with the superiors of the Visitation reflects a self-conscious cultivation of attitudes and skills she believed were congruent with maternal care. Superiors were enjoined to be true mothers, tolerant of their children’s weaknesses, encouraging their small steps, never overly ambitious for their advancement until they themselves grew into the maturity of spiritual wisdom…This task of cultivating and disseminating this spirit of motherly direction occupied Jane de Chantal for many years. It was part of her long-term effort to ensure the survival – both institutional and spiritual – of the Salesian charism in its manifestation as the order of the Visitation.” (LSD, p. 32)
Jane de Chantal shows us a sure and certain method for bringing out the good in others. Her approach included:
- Beginning right where she with the facts at hand
- Nurturing others
- Tolerating others’ weaknesses
- Encouraging small steps
- Allowing others to experience spiritual maturity at their own pace.
We are the beneficiaries of Jane de Chantal’s efforts to ensure the survival of the Salesian charism. How can we pick up where she left off - just today?
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“Son of man, he then said to me, feed your belly and fill your stomach with this scroll I am giving you. I ate it, and it was as sweet as honey in my mouth…”
Francis de Sales opened his preface to the Spiritual Directory by drawing on these same verses above from the book of the prophet Ezekiel. In addition, Francis included the following words below:
“This book will prove bitter to your interior, for it will lead to the perfect mortification of your self-love. It will, on the other hand, be sweeter than honey in your mouth, because there is no consolation equal to that of mortifying our self-love in order to let live and reign in us the love of him who dies for love of us. In this ay your bitterness will be transformed into the sweetness of a perfect peace, and you will be filled with true happiness.
Mortification of our self-love, self-absorption and self-centeredness? Sure, it’s tough. Yes, it can be distasteful. But how can this even come close to the sweetness that comes from becoming the people that God created us to be – images and likenesses of his only Son and our savior?
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Today we remember the ultimate witness to the love of God made by the Polish Conventual Franciscan friar, Maximilian Kolbe. “During the Second World War, he provided shelter to refugees from Greater Poland, including 2,000 Jews whom he hid from Nazi persecution in his friary in Niepokalanów. On 17 February 1941, he was arrested by the Gestapo and imprisoned in Pawlak prison. On 28 May, he was transferred to Auschwitz as prisoner #16670. At the end of July 1941, three prisoners disappeared from the camp, prompting the deputy camp commander to select ten men to be starved to death in an underground bunker in order to deter further escape attempts. When one of the selected men cried out, ‘My wife, my children,’ Kolbe volunteered to take his place.” “In the starvation cell, he celebrated Mass each day and sang hymns with the prisoners. He led the other condemned men in song and prayer. Each time the guards checked on him, he was standing or kneeling in the middle of the cell and looking calmly at those who entered. After two weeks of dehydration and starvation, only Kolbe remained alive. The guards administered to Kolbe a lethal injection of carbolic acid. Some who were present at the injection say that he raised his left arm and calmly waited for the injection. His remains were cremated on 15 August, the feast of the Assumption of Mary.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximilian_Kolbe)
How might we be called to bear witness to our faith in Jesus Christ today?
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“Blessed are you among women ...”
Our Salesian reflection for this Feast Day – the Assumption – comes entirely from Francis de Sales’ Treatise on the Love of God, Book 7, Chapter 14.
“I do not deny that the soul of the most Blessed Virgin had two portions, and therefore two appetites, one according to the spirit and superior reason, and the other according to sense and inferior reason, with the result that she could experience the struggle and contradiction of one appetite against the other. This burden was felt even by her Son. I say that in this heavenly Mother all affections were so well arranged and ordered that love of God held empire and dominion most peaceably without being troubled by diversity of wills and appetites or by contradiction of senses. Neither repugnance of natural appetite nor sensual movements ever went as far as sin, not even as far as venial sin. On the contrary, all was used holily and faithfully in the service of the holy love for the exercise of the other virtues which, for the most part, cannot be practiced except amid difficulty, opposition and contradiction…”
“As everyone knows, the magnet naturally draws iron towards itself by some power both secret and very wonderful. However, there are five things that hinder this operation: (1) if there is too great a distance between magnet and iron; (2) if there is a diamond placed between the two; (3) if the iron is greased; (4) if the iron is rubbed with onion; (5) if the iron is too heavy.”
“Our heart is made for God, and God constantly entices it and never ceases to cast before it the allurements of divine love. Yet five things impede the operation of this holy attraction: (1) sin, which removes us from God; (2) affection for riches; (3) sensual pleasures; (4) pride and vanity; (5) self-love, together with the multitude of disordered passions it brings forth, which are like a heavy load wearing it down.”
“None of these hindrances had a place in the heart of the glorious Virgin. She was: (1) forever preserved from all sin; (2) forever most poor in spirit; (3) forever most pure; (4) forever most humble; (5) forever the peaceful mistress of all her passions and completely exempt from the rebellion that self-love wages against love of God. For this reason, just as the iron, if free from all obstacles and even from its own weight, would be powerfully yet gently drawn with steady attraction by the magnet – although in such wise that the attraction would always be more active and stronger according as they came closer together and their motion approached its end – so, too, the most Blessed Mother, since there is nothing in her to impede the operation of her Son’s divine love, was united with him in an incomparable union by gentle ecstasies without trouble or travail.”
“They were ecstasies in which the sensible part did not cease to perform its actions but without in any way disturbing the spiritual union, just as, in turn, perfect application of the spirit did not cause any great distraction to the senses. Hence, the Virgin’s death was the gentlest that can be imagined, for her Son sweetly drew her after the odor of his perfumes and she most lovingly flowed out after their sacred sweetness even to the bosom of her Son’s goodness. Although this holy soul had supreme love for her own most holy, most pure, and most lovable body, yet she forsook it without any pain or resistance…At the foot of the cross love had given to this divine spouse the supreme sorrows of death. Truly, then, it was reasonable that in the end death would give her the supreme delights of love.”
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“I will re-establish my covenant with you…”
In his Treatise on the Love of God, Francis de Sales wrote:
“In his infinite mercy God would never be unbending toward the work of his hands. He saw that we were clothed ‘in flesh, a wind’ which is dissipated as it goes, ‘and does not return.’ Therefore, according to the bowels of his mercy he did not will to cast us into total ruin, nor to take from us the sign of his lost grace. This was in order that as we saw him and felt within us this covenant and this inclination to love him, we should strive to do so, and that no one could justly ask, ‘Who will show us good things?’ By this natural inclination alone we cannot attain the joy of loving God as he should be loved. Still, if we would only use it faithfully, the sweetness of God’s divine mercy would grant us some help and by it we might go forward. If we cooperate with this first assistance God’s fatherly goodness would afford us another still greater help. He would most gently lead us from good to better, until he had brought us to the supreme love toward which our own inclination naturally urges us. It is certain that to him he who ‘is faithful over a few things’ and has done what is in his power, a benevolent God never denies his help to advance him more and more.” (TLG, Book I, Chapter 18, p. 98)
This faithfulness is the nature of God’s covenant with us. Notwithstanding our infidelity, God is forever faithful to us. No matter what we do or don’t do, God “never denies his help” to us in our attempts – however imperfect - to be the people that God calls us to be.
Today, what return can we make for such mercy and generosity on God’s part? The answer - by doing our level best to never deny our help to others in need.
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“If a man is virtuous, he shall surely live…”
Practicing virtue – that is, developing the habit of doing what is good – is the ultimate expression of any authentic spirituality. In the Salesian tradition, it isn’t enough to do what is good, but one also has to do what is good in ways that fit the state and stage of life in which one finds oneself.
In her book Earth Crammed with Heaven, Elizabeth Dreyer wrote:
“Francis de Sales stands out as one who was firmly convinced that people in every walk of life are called to holiness. His life’s effort, truly innovative in his day, was to help people find God in their particular life calling. The nearness of God was not the exclusive domain of any one group in the church. ‘True devotion,’ he said, ‘adorns and beautifies any vocation or employment.’ He constantly opposed the tendency, frequently found among those who want to live a spiritual; life, to seek the virtues of another state in life while neglecting those proper to one’s vocation. The home is not a convent, and the virtues of the monastic life are not lived in the same way in family life…” (p. 46)
We will truly live to the extent that we practice virtue. We will truly live life to the full to the extent that we practice the virtues proper to the events, circumstances and relationships that we experience day in and day out.
Today, what virtues might God be calling you to practice?
Spirituality Matters: August 4th - August 10th
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“The whole Israelite community grumbled against Moses and Aaron...”
Sometimes the only thing worse than the bad things that happen to us is to invest tons of energy and effort into complaining about them.
Think about it. Who of us ever really improves our situation or lot in life by complaining about it? Still, we do…and to our own detriment.
Was it tough for the Israelites in the desert? You bet! As bad as things were in Egypt, did they have “three hots and a cot”? Yes! By contrast, did they enjoy any such comforts in the wilderness? Apparently, aside from their freedom, not much!
Still, God had redeemed them from slavery after all. God had given them leaders, whose charge it was to lead the Israelites to a promised land, a land flowing with milk and honey. However, one might wonder where the Israelites got the idea that somehow this trek or quest should be nothing but smooth sailing. Nonetheless, they complained…which even now seems somehow petty or small-minded.
Let’s bring this situation closer to home. Who among us in our own day is not tempted to complain when things don’t go our way, when our jobs, our marriages or our relationships turned out to be more difficult or challenging than we had expected or hoped? And to be brutally honest, who of us can claim that grumbling or complaining about the hand we’ve been dealt makes playing that hand any easier? In fact, doesn’t it only make it more – and painfully – difficult?
Francis de Sales is pretty clear when it comes to grumbling or complaining:
“Complain as little as possible about the wrongs you suffer. Undoubtedly a person who complains commits a sin by doing so, since self-love always feels that injuries are worse than they really are.” (Introduction to the Devout Life, Part III, Chapter 3)
Does this mean that we should never raise an issue, a concern or a gripe? No, but we need to be very judicious about those people with whom we raise them. Francis observed:
“Do not complain to irascible or fault-finding persons. If there is some just occasion for complaining to someone either to correct an offense or restore your peace of mind, do so to those who are even-tempered and really love God. Otherwise, instead of calming your mind the others will stir up worse difficulties and instead of pulling out the thorn that is hurting you they will drive it deeper into your foot.” (Ibid)
To be sure, God hears the cries of those who complain. But truth be told, aren’t there better ways to use our words…and spend our lives?
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“Give them some food yourselves.”
The disciples were concerned for the welfare of the crowd that had followed Jesus to a remote place. It had been a long day. Evening was fast approaching and there was no place nearby for the people to get food or, for that matter, shelter. Fearful of the possible consequences, the disciples suggested to Jesus that he should send the crowd away.
On the face of it, this was a very reasonable suggestion. From a purely practical point of view, the disciples were fearful of the possible results of the people being stranded in a deserted place without provisions. All the more remarkable that instead of dismissing the crowd, Jesus said to the disciples: “Give them some food yourselves”.
What possibly could have motivated Jesus to respond this way?
Consider the possibility that Jesus recognized a deeper level of fear in the disciples, a fear far more terrifying than the prospect of scores of men, women and children going without food or water. Perhaps, the disciples were afraid that the crowd would turn to them for help…or maybe even turn against them for failing to help. Faced with this overwhelming prospect, the disciples, in effect, decided to suggest to Jesus that sending folks away would fix the problem.
To be sure, there are some situations or circumstances in our own lives – and in the lives of those we love – that seem far beyond any time, talent or treasure that we might possess. As Clint Eastwood’s “Dirty Harry” character suggests, “A man’s got to know his limitations”. Faced with our own limitations it is wise, indeed, to turn to Jesus in times of need.
But this scene from Matthew’s Gospel challenges us to consider circumstances in which we are tempted to turn to God too quickly for answers without first considering how God may be asking us to act as instruments of life and love for others. To be sure, bringing peace to the Middle East is way beyond my singular abilities. Therefore, I pray to God for peace and pray for those who are working for that peace. But closer to home, how often do I expect God to feed the hungry without first considering how I might be called to offer myself as food and drink to others? How often do I ask God to heal a relationship without first making any effort on my own to be a source of healing? How many times in my life do I immediately expect God to fix the problem without ever considering how God may be asking me to be a part of the solution?
In short, living a life of devotion – following the example of Jesus – avoids two extremes – expecting God to do everything, or expecting us to do everything. Life is about balance, about discernment and about accepting the situations in which when we depend on God to bring about something good, as well as recognizing the circumstances in which God is depending on us to make good things happen.
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“He was transfigured before them…”
Something remarkable happened on that mountain. Consider the possibility that it was not Jesus who changed, but rather, it was Peter, James and John who were transformed.
Imagine that this account from Mark’s Gospel documents the experience of Peter, James and John as if their eyes were opened and their vision widened, enabling them to see without impediment the virtually blinding light of Jesus’ love that flowed from every fiber of his being.
Indeed, every day of Jesus’ life something of that remarkable brilliance, that remarkable passion and that remarkable glory was revealed to people of all ages, stages and states of life. The shepherds and magi saw it; the elders in the temple saw it; the guests at a wedding saw it; a woman caught in adultery saw it; a boy possessed by demons saw it; a man born blind saw it and a good thief saw it.
If so many others could recognize that virtually blinding love of Jesus in a word, a glance or a touch, why might Peter, James and John have required such extra effort in helping them to see Jesus’ glory? Perhaps it was because they were so close to Jesus; perhaps it was because they were with him every day; perhaps it was because, on some level, they had somehow taken his glory for granted.
Now, what about us? Do we recognize that same divine glory present in us, present in others, present in creation and present in even the simplest and most ordinary, everyday experiences of justice, truth, healing, forgiveness, reconciliation and compassion? Or do we take it for granted?
St. Francis de Sales saw the Transfiguration as a “glimpse of heaven.” How might our eyes, our minds and our hearts need to be transfigured and transformed in ways that enable us to catch this “glimpse of heaven” within us and around us? How might we need to see more clearly the glory of a God who always loves, redeems, heals, forgives, challenges, pursues., strengthens and inspires us?
Today, may we grow in our ability - through the quality of our lives - to make that “glimpse of heaven” more clearly visible and available to the eyes – and in the lives – of others.
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“O woman, how great is your faith!”
Today’s Scripture readings offer us a study in contrast. In the Book of Numbers, we see how the faith of the Israelites was shaken when they learned that the land of “milk and honey” promised by the Lord was already occupied by other people, and not just any other people – they were strong, fierce giants living in well-fortified towns. It would seem that the Israelites simply expected to inherit the Promised Land unopposed without any effort or resistance.
Contrast this situation with the faith demonstrated by the Canaanite woman in Matthew’s Gospel. Three times Jesus rebuffed her request to drive a demon out of her daughter. Undaunted, the woman continued to press Jesus to the point where he was not only impressed by her faith but also granted her request.
The Israelites teach us that having a strong faith in God’s Providence doesn’t mean that God’s promises always come easily. Many good things in life require hard, difficult work. For her part the Canaanite woman demonstrates that strong faith in God does not require passivity, but in fact, it often requires persistence and tenacity.
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“Get thee behind me, Satan.”
Wow, how that must have stung! The command “Get behind me, Satan,” spoken to Peter by Jesus, is recorded in Matthew 16:23 and Mark 8:33. “Get behind me, Satan” seems harsh and out of character for Jesus, especially when addressing Peter, one of His most devout disciples. Why did Jesus say this? What was it Peter did to deserve such a rebuke? Without knowing it, Peter was speaking for Satan.
Jesus had just revealed to His disciples for the first time the plan: He was to go to Jerusalem to suffer, die, and be raised to life (Matthew 16:21; Mark 8:31). Contrary to their expectations of Him, Jesus explained that He had not come to establish an earthly Messianic kingdom at that time. The disciples were not prepared for this new revelation of the Messiah’s purpose. Though Peter understood Jesus’ words, apparently, he simply could not reconcile his view of the conquering Messiah with the suffering and death Jesus of which Jesus spoke. So, Peter “began to rebuke Him” for having such a fatalistic mindset.
Peter might in fact have been “a Rock” on which Jesus would subsequently rely heavily, but at this moment, Peter was – however unwittingly – serving as a tool for the Tempter. Like Jesus’ adversary, Peter was not setting his mind on the things of God—His ways, His plans, and His purposes. Instead, his mind was set on the things of man, the things of the world and its earthly values. Jesus was saying that the way of the cross was God’s will, the plan of redemption for all the human family. Peter’s reaction was most likely shared by the other disciples although - as always - it was Peter who first gave voice to it. Peter was inadvertently being used by Satan in thinking he was protecting Jesus. Recall, Satan had purposely tempted Jesus in the wilderness to the run-up to His public ministry: Satan attempted to divert Jesus from the cross, from fulfilling the grand design of the Father and the Son. Without realizing it, Peter was doing the same thing. He had not yet grasped the counterintuitive truth of Jesus’ Messianic purpose.
Although Peter had just moments before declared Jesus as the Christ, seconds later he turned from God’s perspective and viewed the situation from a solely human perspective, which brought about the stern rebuke: “Get behind me, Satan!” Jesus went on to explain: “You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men”.
At the time, Jesus’ stern reprimand did not make sense to Peter. However, Jesus’ indictment presents a profound message for us. We can easily see that Peter had the wrong perspective of God’s plan for Christ’s suffering and death. But we must also see how easily we can become an unwitting tool for Satan. This is especially true when we lose sight of God’s plan for us. This comes about when our focus is on our careers, our possessions, our security and our advantage rather than upon sacrifice and service and the proclaiming of God’s message. When Peter’s focus shifted to his own desires and plans, Jesus’ rebuke was a wake-up call for him. Jesus shocked Peter with the aim of getting him back on track. Perhaps we can learn from St. Peter to avoid the temptation ourselves to view life in a way contrary to the power and promise of true discipleship.
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“Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.”
In a conference to the Visitation Sisters on “Hope,” Francis de Sales counseled:
“If divine Providence does not permit afflictions or mortifications to come upon you, then do not desire them or ask for them. On the other hand, if divine Providence permits afflictions or mortifications to come upon you, you must not refuse them but accept them courageously, lovingly and calmly.” (Conference VI, P. 95)
Some crosses can be delayed but not denied. On any given day we would do well not to desire or ask for afflictions or mortifications, but if any afflictions or mortifications should come our way today, how will we accept – and deal with – them?
“St. Teresa converted from Judaism to Catholicism in the course of her work as a philosopher, and later entered the Carmelite Order. She died in the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz in August 1942.” “Edith Stein was born on October 12, 1891 – a date that coincided with her family's celebration of Yom Kippur, the Jewish “day of atonement.” Edith's father died when she was just two years old, and she gave up the practice of her Jewish faith as an adolescent.”
“As a young woman with profound intellectual gifts, Edith gravitated toward the study of philosophy and became a pupil of the renowned professor Edmund Husserl in 1913. Through her studies, the non-religious Edith met several Christians whose intellectual and spiritual lives she admired.”
“After earning her degree with the highest honors from Gottingen University in 1915, she served as a nurse in an Austrian field hospital during World War I. She returned to academic work in 1916, earning her doctorate after writing a highly-regarded thesis on the phenomenon of empathy. She remained interested in the idea of religious commitment but had not yet made such a commitment herself.”
“In 1921, while visiting friends, Edith spent an entire night reading the autobiography of the 16th century Carmelite nun St. Teresa of Avila. ‘When I had finished the book’ she later recalled, ‘I said to myself: This is the truth.’ She was baptized into the Catholic Church on the first day of January 1922.”
“Edith intended to join the Carmelites immediately after her conversion but would ultimately have to wait another 11 years before taking this step. Instead, she taught at a Dominican school, and gave numerous public lectures on women's issues. She spent 1931 writing a study of St. Thomas Aquinas, and took a university teaching position in 1932.”
“In 1933, with the National Socialists coming to power in Germany - combined with Edith's Jewish ethnicity – her teaching career came to an end. After a painful parting with her mother, who did not understand her Christian conversion, she entered a Carmelite convent in 1934, taking the name “Teresa Benedicta of the Cross” as a symbol of her acceptance of suffering.”
“’I felt,’ she wrote, ‘that those who understood the Cross of Christ should take upon themselves on everybody's behalf.’ She saw it as her vocation “to intercede with God for everyone,’ but she prayed especially for the Jews of Germany whose tragic fate was becoming clear. ‘I ask the Lord to accept my life and my death,’ she wrote in 1939, ‘so that the Lord will be accepted by his people and that his kingdom may come in glory, for the salvation of Germany and the peace of the world.’”
“After completing her final work, a study of St. John of the Cross entitled ‘The Science of the Cross,’ Teresa Benedicta was arrested along with her sister Rosa (who had also become a Catholic), and the members of her religious community, on August 7, 1942. The arrests came in retaliation against a protest letter by the Dutch Bishops, decrying the Nazi treatment of Jews. St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross died in the concentration camp at Auschwitz on August 9, 1942. Blessed John Paul II canonized her in 1998 and proclaimed her a co-patroness of Europe the next year.”
(https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/saint/st-teresa-benedicta-of-the-cross-edith-stein-557)A year before her death, Maximilian Kolbe (who likewise perished in Auschwitz), wrote the following:
"No one in the world can change Truth. What we can do and should do is to seek truth and to serve it when we have found it. The real conflict is the inner conflict. Beyond armies of occupation and the hetacombs of extermination camps, there are two irreconcilable enemies in the depth of every soul: good and evil, sin and love. And what use are the victories on the battlefield if we are ourselves are defeated in our innermost personal selves?"
(http://catholicfire.blogspot.com/2006/08/favorite-quotes-from-st-maximilian.html)The Nazis may have taken her life, but they failed to annihilate her legacy – through her willingness to take up her cross, the Truth, in fact, had already set her free.
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“Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life.”
“A well-known legend has persisted from earliest times. As deacon in Rome, Lawrence was charged with the responsibility for the material goods of the church and the distribution of alms to the poor. When Lawrence knew he would be arrested like the pope, he sought out the poor, widows and orphans of Rome and gave them all the money he had on hand, selling even the sacred vessels to increase the sum. When the prefect of Rome heard of this, he imagined that the Christians must have considerable treasure. He sent for Lawrence and said, “You Christians say we are cruel to you, but that is not what I have in mind. I am told that your priests offer in gold, that the sacred blood is received in silver cups, that you have golden candlesticks at your evening services. Now, your doctrine says you must render to Caesar what is his. Bring these treasures—the emperor needs them to maintain his forces. God does not cause money to be counted: He brought none of it into the world with him—only words. Give me the money, therefore, and be rich in words.’”
“Lawrence replied that the church was indeed rich. ‘I will show you a valuable part. But give me time to set everything in order and make an inventory.’ After three days he gathered a great number of blind, lame, maimed, leprous, orphaned and widowed people and put them in rows. When the prefect arrived, Lawrence simply said, ‘These are the treasure of the church’.”<< data-preserve-html-node="true"/p>
“The prefect was so angry he told Lawrence that he would indeed have his wish to die—but it would be by inches. He had a great gridiron prepared, with coals beneath it, and had Lawrence’s body placed on it. After the martyr had suffered the pain for a long time, the legend concludes, he made his famous cheerful remark, ‘It is well done. Turn me over!’.”
(http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/Saints/saint.aspx?id=1103)In “losing” his life, Lawrence came to know his most authentic self. How might we follow his example with the everyday challenges that we might experience just today?
Spirituality Matters: July 28th - August 3rd
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“Live in a manner worthy of the call you have received, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another through love, striving to preserve the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace:
As living plants of the Church, the call that each of us has received is to bear fruit – fruit that will last. Of course, insofar as devotion adapts itself to the strengths, situations and circumstances of each person, we bear fruit in ways particular to the state and stage of life in which we find ourselves. In short, we are all called to live a life of virtue.
In his Introduction to the Devout Life, Francis de Sales wrote:
“The king of bees never goes out into the fields without being surrounded by his little subjects. In like manner, charity never enters a heart without lodging both itself and its train of all the other virtues which it exercises and disciplines as a captain does his soldiers. It does not put them to work all at once, nor at all times and in all places. The just man is ‘like a tree planted near running water, that yields its fruit in due season’, for charity waters the soul and produces in it virtuous deeds, each in its proper time.”
“A great fault in many who undertake the exercise of some particular virtue is thinking they must practice it in every situation. Like certain philosophers, they wish either always to weep or always to laugh. What is still worse, they condemn and censure others who do not practice the same virtues they do. The Apostle says, ‘Rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep’, and ‘charity is patient, is kind’, generous, prudent discreet and considerate.”
To sum it up, to live a life worthy of our calling requires that we live lives of virtue. But, from a Salesian perspective, there’s more to it than that – we also need to know when and how to practice a particular virtue (or virtues) in any given relationship, situation or circumstance.
In other words, it isn’t enough to have all the tools – we need to know when and how to use them. Put another way, when it comes to the practice of virtue, we always need to know when it is time to practice it.
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"You are anxious and worried about many things."
We are all-too familiar with this image from the Gospel according to Luke. All-too familiar because it is all-too easy to see in this Gospel a putdown of action and activity as compared with prayer and contemplation.
We need to revisit this interpretation. We need to understand how this Gospel speaks about Martha and Mary. More importantly, we need to consider how this Gospel speaks to us.
Jesus does not criticize Martha for being busy about the details of hospitality. Rather, Jesus criticizes the fact that Martha is allowing her activity and expectations to make her anxious. Likewise, Mary is not exalted due to her inactivity, but rather because she is not burdened with anxiety. In short, Martha is upset and flustered, while Mary is calm and centered.
Both Martha and Mary bring something to the experience of hospitality. In Martha, we see the importance of tending to detail when welcoming people into our homes. In Mary, we see the importance of welcoming people into our lives, into our hearts and into the core of who we are without allowing the details to overwhelm us. Hospitality, then, is not a matter of choosing between activity and availability. It is a matter of incorporating – and of integrating – both.
Francis de Sales certainly knew this truth when he described the two great faces of love: the love of complacence and the love of benevolence. Complacence is love that delights in simply being in the presence of the beloved; benevolence is love that delights in expressing this complacence by doing for the beloved.
Doing and being. Being and doing. This is the dance of hospitality. This is the dance of love…a dance that challenges us to be as free as possible from anxious self-absorption, self-preoccupation and self-destruction.
To be truly open, to be truly welcoming, to be truly hospitable, there needs to be something of both Martha and Mary in each of us.
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“Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field…”
Within the last week or so, we touched upon the image of wheat and weeds. There is something of both wheat and weeds inside each and every one of us. Careful examination of the interior gardens of our thoughts, feelings and attitudes reveals things which promote life. Likewise, in those same gardens we can identify things that can compromise life.
In a letter to Madame de la Flechere, Francis de Sales wrote:
“Don’t be examining yourself to see if what you are doing is little or much, good or bad, provided that it is not sinful and that, in all good faith, you are trying to do it for God. As much as possible, do well that you have to do, and once it is done, think no more about it but turn your attention to what has to be done next. Walk simply along the way our Lord shows you and don’t worry. We must hate our faults, but we should do so calmly and peacefully, without fuss or anxiety. We must be patient at the sight of these faults and learn from the humiliation which they bring about. Unless you do this, your imperfections – of which you are acutely conscious – will disturb you even more and thus grow stronger, for nothing is more favorable to the growth of these ‘weeds’ than our anxiety and over eagerness to rid ourselves of them.” (Letters of Spiritual Direction, pp. 161-162)
In each of us we find a mixture of both wheat and weeds. In each of us we find a mixed bag of both good and bad. Essentially, the Salesian tradition challenges us to deal with this reality in three ways:
- First, detest the weeds within us.
- Second, don’t dwell on those weeds within us.
- Third, focus on – and nourish – the wheat within us.
I hope these thoughts help you to understand this parable better and to put it into practice!
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“The Kingdom of heaven is like a treasure; like searching for fine pearls.”
A traditional way of explaining these images in today’s Gospel is to place the emphasis on us. This perspective considers this Gospel as a challenge to the hearer to “trade up”, that is, to give up those things we most value in order to obtain that which has the greatest value - the Kingdom of God.
A non-traditional way of explaining these images – and, apparently, the more accurate one – is to place the emphasis on God. It is God who is “trading up” for something better; it is God who is – as it were – cashing in all his chips for something even more valuable. What is that “treasure”? What are those “fine pearls”? We are the treasure that God pursues at any price and we are the pearls that God leaves no stone unturned to possess.
God “traded up” his only Son because He wanted to reclaim us. God “cashed in\” his only Son, because He wanted to redeem us. God gave away everything He had in order to make us his own. In these acts God clearly displayed that it’s people, not things – like possessions, power or privilege – that God values the most.
We are God-given treasures! We are pearls bought at the highest of prices! Do we treat ourselves – and one another – accordingly?
Today and every day!
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“The Kingdom of heaven is like a net thrown into the sea, which collects fish of every kind. When it is full they haul it ashore and sit down to put what is good into buckets. What is bad they throw away.”
What should I hold onto in life? What should I let go of in life? What’s good for me? What’s not good for me? These kinds of questions are the stuff of discernment. John Crossin, OSFS offers for our consideration three aspects of any discernment process, that is, any attempt to determine God’s will.
Mind you, discernment is not an exact science. While we can come to know God’s Will in broad strokes – and sometimes even in the particular – we can’t presume to know it all. And sometimes, we may even get it wrong. Still, some of the things that can help us to know what to keep and what to give away in life include:
God’s Signified Will – It is the information we already have at our disposal from the Scriptures, Commandments, Counsels etc. This information clearly communicates what God considers to be good, virtuous and life-giving values, attitudes and actions.
Feedback from Others – We should make good use of the wise counsel of friends, clergy, mentors, counselors and other people whom we trust. True friends will know when to tell us what we want to hear, and when to tell us what we need to hear.
Flexibility – Francis de Sales observed that while all the saints are recognized for their conformity to God’s will, no two saints followed God’s Will in exactly the same way. We need to remind ourselves that discernment is about what God wants us - not others - to do in any particular situation. Sometimes, this may require us to “think outside of the box” - we need to be open to change.
Today, life being what it is, we may catch all kinds of things in the nets of our lives. Some things are always good for us; other things are always bad for us. However, there may be some things we catch that used to be good but no longer are. On the other hand, there may be other things once considered bad that may now actually be very good.
Decisions, decisions! What do I keep? Well, I keep the things that promote the Kingdom of heaven! What do I throw away? I throw away the things that don’t!
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“A prophet is not without honor except in his native place, in his own house...”
It isn’t an accident that prophetic people are often most unappreciated by those closest to them. It isn’t by chance that prophetic voices encounter the most resistance from members of their own family, relatives or friends. It isn’t a surprise that prophetic movements are often far easier to export abroad than to practice at home. Recall the saying: “Familiarity breeds contempt”.
Strangers don’t see our foibles. Strangers don’t see our weaknesses. Strangers don’t experience our dark side. But as we know all-too-well, those who know us well do see those things…and much, much more. We are all disciples of Jesus. We are all commissioned by virtue of our Baptism to preach the Word. So, what are we to do? Preach freely to strangers but remain silent when in the presence of those with whom we labor, live and love? No, that won’t do. When it comes to following Jesus, we know that there’s extra pressure when we are among our own. We realize that there is extra scrutiny in our own glass house. We accept that there is greater expectation (and perhaps more skepticism) in our native place. So, how should we as would-be prophets deal with this reality?
The answer - make sure that you’re already making your best efforts to put into practice what you are pondering to preach. Beginning today!
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“The priests and the prophets said to the princes and to all the people, ‘This man deserves death…’”
Speaking of prophets being without honor in their native place, consider today’s selection from the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah. In a classic case of no good deed going unpunished, Jeremiah stirs up a hornet’s nest by being faithful to God’s will for him, which was to prophesy against his own house and his own city. While protesting his innocence, Jeremiah spends what may be his last breaths trying to convince the people to accept God’s word on its own merits rather than to bargain for his life. Having spoken his peace, Jeremiah decides to let the chips fall where they may.
Fortunately for him, the chips fell both God’s way and Jeremiah’s way!
In his Introduction to the Devout Life, Francis de Sales observed:
“We must not be too ardent, precise and demanding in regard to preserving our good name. Men who are overly tender and sensitive on this point are like people who take medicine for slight indispositions. Although they think they are preserving their health, they actually destroy it. In like manner those who try too carefully to maintain their reputation lose it entirely. Generally speaking, to ignore or despise an injury or calumny is a far more effective remedy than resentment, fighting and revenge. Crocodiles harm only those who are afraid of them and detraction hurts only those who are vexed by it. Excessive fear of losing our good name reveals great distrust in its foundation, which is living a good life. Towns that have wooden bridges over great rivers are afraid that they will be swept away by every little rise of water, but those with stone bridges fear only extraordinary floods. In like manner those with souls solidly grounded on virtue usually despise the floods let loose by harmful tongues…” (IDL, Part III, Chapter 27, pp. 195-196)
Jeremiah faced not only the prospect of losing his reputation or credibility for speaking God’s word, but he also faced the possibility of losing his life for speaking God’s word. His response showed remarkable strength of character and purpose - a character that obviously convinced enough people to not only protect his life but also to preserve his reputation. His courage persuaded the people to accept his message as well.
Have you ever faced “push-back” from others for saying or doing the right thing? While your life may not have been at risk, how might your reputation among others suffered as a result of your decision to stand up for what it right? How did you deal – or are your dealing - with that experience?
Spirituality Matters: July 21st - July 27th
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“Rest a while...”
“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”. Not only might it make Jack dull, but it also might cripple Jack’s attempts at being happy, healthy and even holy!
Make no mistake. Growing in holiness - making real in our own lives the love of the God in whose image and likeness we are created - is serious business. It requires hard work; it requires discipline; it requires self-examination; it requires commitment.
As Francis de Sales would say, it requires devotion.
Salesian spirituality also recognizes the value of relaxation, of taking “time out”, of “catching your breath” and making time for play. In fact, relaxation is not only permissible, but it is also necessary!
Francis de Sales claimed: “It is actually a defect to be so strict, austere and unsociable that one neither permits oneself nor others any recreation time”. His Introduction to the Devout Life (1609) contains ample evidence of the Gentleman Saint's appreciation of the important role that rest and recreation play in the pursuit of a fully human, God-centered life. He said:
“From time to time we must recreate in mind and body. Take the air, go for a walk, enjoy a friendly chat, play music, or sing or hunt…are such honest diversions that the only thing needed to utilize them well is simple prudence, which gives to all things their rank, time, place and measure”.
To be balanced, we need to know our limitations. We need to know when it’s time to say “enough”, if only for a little while. St. Jane once wrote in the context of a letter to a member of her community:
“I must run, for I have little leisure and my arm and hand are starting to tire and hurt, even though I’ve just begun to write. I’m not able to do as much as I used to”.
In his book Touching the Ordinary, Robert Wicks identifies practices that can help us establish and maintain a balanced life: get enough sleep, eat right, practice leisure and pace yourself. Learn to laugh; focus on values; practice self-appreciation; be involved, but not too involved; have a support group; escape on occasion; be spontaneous; avoid negativity; establish good friendships and practice intimacy.
Our Lord Jesus Christ spent virtually his entire public ministry meeting the needs of others: healing, teaching, feeding, challenging and forgiving - in short, working. But the Gospels that document Christ's work ethic also clearly document those times when he withdrew from his activities to rest, to renew, to enjoy another’s hospitality and to spend time with friends. All these ways were helpful in rededicating himself to doing the Will of God.
There are plenty of ways for us to achieve a balance between work and play, livelihood and leisure, pay and play. Consider them in a personal, prayerful manner. Choose those consistent with the state and stage of life in which you find yourself at this time. Realize that as your life changes, so too may your means for achieving this happy, healthy and holy balance.
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“She saw Jesus but did not know it was Jesus.”
In a letter to Marie Bourgeois Brulart, Francis de Sales wrote:
“Mary Magdalene is looking for Our Lord and it is he whom she holds. She is asking him, and it is he whom she asks. She could not see him as she had hoped to see him. This is why she did not recognize him as he actually was and continues to see him in another guise. She wanted to see him in his robes of glory and not in the lowly clothes of a gardener. But in the end she recognized him when he spoke to her by name: ‘Mary’.”
“You see, Our Lord meets you every day dressed as a gardener in any number of places and situations…Be of good cheer and let nothing dismay you.” (Selected Letters, Stopp, p. 136)
On any given day God may be, as it were, hidden in plain sight. However, it is not a case of God trying to hide from us! Rather, it is our desire to see God in ways that match our preferences, and that prevent us from seeing God as He really is, especially when it comes to recognizing how God is present in us and in one another!
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“Whoever does the will of my heavenly Father is my brother, sister and mother…”
In the opinion of William Barclay, this selection from Matthew’s Gospel offers us an expanded notion of the ties that bind - a new way of looking at kinship, family and friendship. He wrote:
“True kinship is not always a matter of flesh and blood relationship. It remains true that blood is a tie that nothing can break and that many people find their delight and their peace in the circle of their families. But it is also true that sometimes a man’s nearest and dearest are the people who understand him least, and that he finds his true fellowship with those who work for a common ideal and who share a common experience. This certainly is true – even if Christians find that those who should be closest to them are those who are most out of sympathy with them, there remains for them the fellowship of Jesus Christ and the friendship of all who love the Lord.”
Barclay says that this expanded notion of family – of home – is founded on three things:
A common ideal. People who are very different can be firm friends, if they have a common ideal for which they work and toward which they press.
A common experience and the memories that come from it. When people have passed together through some great experience – and when they can look back on it together – real friendship begins.
Obedience. There is no better way of showing the reality of love than the spirit of obedience.
In a conference to the Visitation Sisters, Francis remarked:
“Let us hear and follow the voice of the divine Savior, who like the perfect psalmist, pours forth the last strains of an undying love from the tree of the cross, ‘Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.’ After that has been said, what remains but to breathe forth our last breath and die of love, living no longer for ourselves but Jesus living in us? Then, all the anxieties of our hearts will cease – anxieties proceeding from desires suggested by self-love and by tenderness for ourselves that make us secretly so eager in the pursuit of our own satisfaction…Embarked, then, in the exercises of our own vocation and carried along by the winds of this simple and loving confidence we shall make the greatest progress; we shall draw nearer and nearer to home.” (Living Jesus, p. 430)
As members of Jesus’ family, let us do our level best to be obedient, that is, to listen to the voice of God in our lives and act upon what we hear. May we celebrate the kinship, friendship and love that come with following the will of our heavenly Father and experience the ties that truly and tenaciously bind us together.
Today!
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“Some seed fell on rich soil, and produced fruit…”
In a letter to the Duc de Bellegarde, Francis de Sales wrote:
“Persevere in this great courage and determination which keeps you lifted high above temporal things. Keep your eyes fixed steadfastly on that blissful day of eternity towards which the course of years bears us on. As these pass they themselves pass by us stage after stage until we reach the end of the road. But in the meantime, in each passing moment there lies enclosed as in a tiny kernel the seed of all eternity, and in our humble little works of devotion there lies hidden the prize of everlasting glory…”(TLG, Book XI, Chapter 6, Chapter 29, p. 212)
Regardless of how large or small the yield of the seeds that God has planted deep within you, there is only one place in which you will find those seeds – today.
In each and every present moment!
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“Whoever wishes to be great among you shall be your servant…”
Francis de Sales once wrote:
“‘Borrow empty vessels, not a few,’ said Elisha to the poor widow, ‘and pour oil into them.’ (2 Kings 4: 3-4) To receive the grace of God into our hearts they must be emptied of our own pride…” (Living Jesus, p. 149)
It’s all-too-easy to fill our hearts – our precious earthen vessels – with all kinds of earthly treasures, things that – as good as they might be – aren’t really treasures at all - at least, not where God is concerned. The less space occupied in our hearts by things that merely pass for treasure, the more room we make available in our hearts for the real, heavenly treasure that is truly precious - the love of God. Recall the words of St. Francis de Sales in a conference (On Cordiality) he gave to the Sisters of the Visitation:
“We must remember that love has its seat in the heart, and that we can never love our neighbor too much, nor exceed the limits of reason in this affection, provided that it dwells in the heart.” (Conference IV, p. 56)
The story of Zebedee’s sons illustrates the importance of being very careful about what we store in our hearts. Notwithstanding their intimate relationship with Jesus, they set their hearts on a treasure that was not in Jesus’ power to grant: places of honor in His Kingdom. He responds to this request (made on James and John’s behalf by their mother, no less, who apparently also had her heart set on honor for her sons as well) by challenging them to set their hearts not on the desire for honor but on opportunities to serve the needs of others…and so to have honor beyond their wildest dreams!
Jesus tells Zebedee’s sons that the chalice from which they will drink (the same chalice from which Jesus drank every day) is an invitation to experience the greatness that comes from being a servant. Francis de Sales wrote:
“To be a servant of God means to be charitable towards one’s neighbors, to have an unshakable determination in the superior part of one’s soul to obey the will of God, to trust in God with a very humble humility and simplicity, to lift oneself up as often as one falls, to endure through one’s own imperfections and to put up with the imperfections of others.” (Selected Letters, Stopp, p. 140)
Today, how ready and willing are we to drink from that same chalice today?
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“Hear the parable of the sower….”
In his Introduction to the Devout Life, Francis de Sales wrote:
“Ostriches never fly; hens fly in a clumsy fashion, near the ground, and only once in a while, but eagles, doves and swallows fly aloft, swiftly and frequently. In like manner, sinners in no way fly up towards God, but make their whole course upon the earth and for the earth. Good people who have not as yet attained to devotion fly toward God by their good works but do so infrequently, slowly and awkwardly. Devout souls ascend to him more frequently, promptly and with lofty flights.” (IDL, Part I, Chapter 1, p. 40)
There is something of the ostrich, something of the hen and something of the eagle in all of us. We crawl in God’s paths; we stumble in God’s path; we fall in God’s paths; we walk and sometimes run in God’s paths, and on occasion, we even manage to fly in God’s paths. So, too, there is something of each of the scenarios of the seed in today’s Gospel that applies to us. Sometimes God’s word is stolen from our hearts before it has a chance to grow. Sometimes God’s word springs up quickly in us but withers even more quickly because of our shallowness or hardness of heart. Sometimes God’s word falls to the wayside because we lose heart in the midst of trials and difficulties. Sometimes God’s word is simply overwhelmed by our fears, doubts, anxieties and second-guesses.
But sometimes – just sometimes – God’s word finds a home deep in our hearts – deep in our souls, deep in our lives – and bears a harvest beyond our wildest dreams: thirty, sixty or even a hundredfold.
And so we don’t just hear the parable of the sower, but also – more importantly – we live the parable of the sower! Consider the ways in which the seeds of God’s love might have trouble taking root in your life. More importantly, focus your attention and energy on the ways in which the seeds of God’s love have made a deep, abiding and fruitful home in your mind, heart, attitude and actions!
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“Let them grow together until harvest…”
In the garden of our lives all of us can find both wheat and weeds. It’s really tempting to focus our energy and attention on identifying and removing the weeds, but we do this at the risk of unintentionally removing the wheat as well. Jesus suggests that it is far better to be comfortable with the fact that we have both wheat and weeds in our lives and to allow God to sort them out over time. Francis de Sales clearly grasped the wisdom of Jesus’ advice. In a letter to Madame de la Flechere, he wrote:
“Don’t be examining yourself to see if what you are doing is little or great, good or bad, provided that it is not sinful and that, in all good faith, you are trying to do it for God. As much as possible do well what you have to do, and once it is done, think no more about it but turn your attention to what has to be done next. Walk very simply along the way our Lord shows you and don’t worry. We must hate our faults, but we should do so calmly and peacefully, without fuss or anxiety. We must be patient at the sight of these faults and learn from the humiliation that they bring about. Unless you do this, your imperfections, of which you are acutely conscious, will disturb you even more and thus grow stronger, for nothing is more favorable to the growth of these ‘weeds’ than our anxiety and overeagerness to get rid of them.” (Letters of Spiritual Direction, pp. 161-162)
What’s the bottom line? God loves us just the way we are - weeds and all. Who are we to suggest that God will love us more without them?
Spirituality Matters: July 14th - July 20th
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“The Lord took me from following the flock, and said to me, Go, prophesy to my people Israel.”
“In Him we were also chosen, destined in accord with the purpose of the One who accomplishes all things, according to the intention of his will, so that we might exist for the praise of his glory we who first hoped in Christ.”
St. Francis de Sales once traveled to Bellevaux with a young priest where he relived his first days as a missionary in the Chablais. The residents were very timid and wary. The two could not get any lodging, no wine and no seats on which to sit. The two had to eat poor bread for which they paid enormously - a little cheese, a little water, having no table other than the ground - no tablecloth other than their own cloaks.
Francis said:
“Here is the real apostolic life, the life where one can imitate in some fashion the poverty of Jesus Christ and his Apostles. I am accustomed to this because for two or three years I experienced the same cruelty from the residents in various villages.”
Even with these setbacks or because of them, Francis loved the people whose pastor he was. He gave everyone a fraternal welcome and led them in apostolic generosity, which he himself practiced. He put into practice: “It is better to be humble with the poor than to share booty with the proud”. (Proverbs. 16: 19) He knew the apostolic spirit: “He is close to the broken-hearted; he soothes the dejected spirit”. (Proverbs 33:19)
Francis listened to God's voice and added his own to the Lord's. His keen intellect and educational background prepared him for how to argue, yet he was able to turn aside hatred. Francis had a great desire to debate the Protestant ministers, but few took up the challenge. A few in his audience secretly took notes from his sermons, copied them, and passed them around Geneva. At first there was little response, but with the passage of time came a great many conversions to the faith.
One can do a great deal in his or her own style of preaching, teaching and working. It is a great gift to allow the Lord's Spirit to work in us and others, and not to be discouraged by hardships, disappointments, and our own way of wanting to get things done. Many great people, who have gone before us, have shown us the way.
Francis de Sales showed the power of the virtue of hope. A hope which eventually produced great fruit, due to the insight, vigor and determination of a saint who was unwilling to allow frustration and pain from preventing him from preaching the word of the Lord.
May we be emboldened, enlightened and – when necessary – encouraged by his example.
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“Whoever gives only a cup of cold water to one of these little ones to drink because he is a disciple - Amen, I say to you, he will surely not lose his reward.”
In Introduction to the Devout Life, Francis de Sales wrote:
“Little daily acts of charity, a headache, toothache or cold, the ill humor of a husband or wife, this contempt or that scorn, the loss of a pair of gloves, a ring or a handkerchief, the little inconveniences incurred by going to bed early and getting up early to pray or attend Mass, the little feelings of self-consciousness that comes with performing good deeds in public – in short, all such little things as these when accepted and embraced with love are highly pleasing to God’s mercy. For a single cup of water God has promised to his faithful people a sea of endless bliss. Since such opportunities present themselves constantly each day it will be a great means of storing up vast spiritual riches only if you use them well…Great opportunities to serve God rarely present themselves, whereas little ones are frequent.”(IDL, Part III, Chapter 35, pp. 214 - 215)
Jesus - as it were - throws cold water on the notion that serving God is limited to doing great things for others. As Francis de Sales clearly understood, the point that Jesus makes is that serving God, more often than not, is displayed in our willingness to do little things for one another with great love.
Francis de Sales tells us that we can store up vast spiritual riches by enriching the lives of others in simple, ordinary ways.
Today, how might we store up such riches?
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“For if the mighty deeds done in your midst had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day.”
In Introduction to the Devout Life, Francis de Sales wrote:
“Put your hand to strong things, by training yourself in prayer and meditation, receiving the Sacraments, bringing souls to love God, infusing good inspirations into their hearts and in fine, by performing big, important works according to your vocation. But never forget to practice those little, humble virtues that grow at the foot of the cross: helping the poor, visiting the sick and taking care of your family with all the tasks that go with such things and with all the useful diligence that will not allow you to be idle.” (IDL, Part II, Chapter 35, pp. 214 - 215)
The selection from today’s Gospel suggests why Jesus emphasized the importance of doing little things for other people as illustrated also in yesterday’s Gospel selection. Jesus had firsthand experience of how some of his contemporaries were left cold and unconvinced by even some of the greatest deeds that he performed. Put another way, Jesus discovered that even the greatest of deeds are powerless in the presence of hardened hearts. Mind you, the selective stubbornness of some folks did not deter Jesus from doing great things, but Jesus doubtless enjoyed great success in his ministry by performing little deeds as well - visiting people in their homes, walking and talking with people and just simply being with other people.
In our own lives there may be times when our love for God and others may require us to perform “important works” associated with the state and stage of life in which we find ourselves. Chances are, however, that the challenge to do big things won’t present itself frequently. However, never forget that time-honored saying to which most – if not all – of us can relate. Little things mean a lot.
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“Judgment will be with justice, and the upright of heart shall follow it...” The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines judgment as “the process of forming an opinion or evaluation by discerning and comparing an idea that is believed to be true or valid without positive knowledge.” Synonyms include: belief, conclusion, conviction, determination, diagnosis, eye, mind, notion, opinion, resolution, sentiment, verdict and view.
OK. Then, it should be obvious that a world without judgment (and things akin to it) would be a pretty chaotic place. We need to be able to make determinations, draw conclusions, form opinions and develop views in order to make our way through life. The challenge (presented to us in today’s Responsorial Psalm) is to render judgments that are just and to avoid the temptation to make judgments that are rash.
In his Introduction to the Devout Life, Francis de Sales wrote:
“How offensive to God are rash judgments! The judgments of the children of men are rash because they are not the judges of one another, and when they pass judgment on others they usurp the office of our Lord. Such judgments are rash because the principal malice of sin depends on the intention and counsel of the heart. They are rash because every man has enough on which he ought to judge himself without taking it upon himself to judge his neighbors…fear, ambition and similar mental weaknesses often contribute to the birth of suspicion and rash judgment.” (IDL, Part III, Chapter 28, p. 196-197)
What is the cure for rash, unjust judgments?
“Drink as deeply as you can of the sacred wine of charity. It will set you free from the perverse moods that cause us to make such tortured judgments, for whoever wants to be cured must apply remedies not to one’s eyes or intellect but to one’s affections. If your reflections are kind, your judgments will be kind; if your affections are charitable, your judgments will be the same.” (Ibid, pp. 198-199)
What is Francis de Sales’ advice for those dedicated to judging justly
“Those who look carefully into their consciences are not very likely to pass rash judgments. Just as bees in misty or cloudy weather stay in their lives to prepare honey, so also the thoughts of good men do not go out in search of things concealed among the cloudy actions of their neighbors. It is the part of an unprofitable soul to amuse itself with examining the lives of other people.” Duly note, however, an important caveat that Francis wrote: “I except those who are placed in charge of others, whether within a family or in the state. For them a great part of their duties consists in inspecting and watching over the conduct of others. In such cases as these, let those responsible for others discharge their duty and make judgments with love.” (Ibid, pp. 200-201)
If/when you need to make judgments, avoid the temptation to do so rashly. If/when you need to make judgments, do so justly. That is, with love!
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“Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart.”
St. Francis de Sales clearly learned from this self-described Jesus. The “Gentleman Saint” is recognized by the universal Church for the great strides that he made in imitating in his own life and in the lives of others the meek, humble Sacred Heart of Christ. In his daily attempts to shepherd the people of his diocese – and many others beyond the confines of Savoy – there is no doubt that he followed and modeled the “meek and humble” Jesus.
In her book St. Francis de Sales and the Protestants, author Ruth Kleinman remarked:
“The special qualities of Francis de Sales’ method of conversion were his gentleness and his humanity. God gave Francis de Sales the incomparable meekness absolutely necessary to soften the bitterness of heresy and to conquer the spirit by touching the heart, making him the master of spiritual persuasion.”
She then adds:
“But his gentleness did not mean softness.”
Francis de Sales was tender toward heretics, while tough on heresy. He was yielding with people seeking spiritual growth, while unrelenting with corrupt clergy or recalcitrant cloisters. He was meek when dealing with sinners, while militant when dealing with sin. Fr. Alexander Sandy Pocetto, OSFS, suggests that in imitating the Sacred Heart of Jesus Francis de Sales learned the importance of being not only a lamb, but also a lion.
Look at the “meek and humble” Jesus himself. He healed the sick; he welcomed the lost; he freed the imprisoned; he forgave sinners; he promoted justice; he called “great” all those who did the will of his Father. But he also drove out demons; he confronted injustice; he called out the Pharisees, Sadducees and Scribes; he turned over the tables of the moneychangers; he even once referred to Peter as “Satan”.
While the meek and humble Jesus didn’t look for a fight, he wouldn’t duck one, either, not when it came to promoting the Kingdom of God, the things of God, the values of God and the love of God.
Today, let us ask God to help us to continue to learn from his Son. When it comes to our daily attempts to be people who strive to be both firmly gentle and gently firm, may Jesus teach us how and when to be lambs – and lions – of God.
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“I desire mercy, not sacrifice.”
In a conference to the Sisters of the Visitation, Francis de Sales observed:
“That saying, so celebrated among the ancients – ‘know thyself’ – even though it may be understood as applying to the knowledge of the greatness and excellence of the soul (so that it might not be debased or profaned by things unworthy of its nobility) it may also be taken as referring to the knowledge of our unworthiness, imperfection and misery. The greater our knowledge of ourselves, the more profound will be our confidence in the goodness and mercy of God, for between mercy and misery there is so close a connection that the one cannot be exercised without the other. If God had not created man He would still indeed have been perfect in goodness, but He would not have been actually merciful, since mercy can only be exercised towards the miserable.” (Select Salesian Subjects, 022, pp. 46 - 47)
We see this dynamic at work in today’s Gospel, but not in quite the way that Francis de Sales intended. The Pharisees observe Jesus’ disciples feeding themselves by picking the heads of grain. Blinded by their own self-perceived “greatness and excellence,” the Pharisees considered this activity to be work, something strictly forbidden on the sabbath. As we’ve seen in many other places throughout the Gospels, seeing Jesus’ disciples – or Jesus himself, for that matter – being merciful (that is, being generous) to others on the sabbath made the Pharisees miserable. If they had really known themselves - that is, their own unworthiness, imperfection and misery - the Pharisees would have approved and applauded Jesus for doing the right thing, regardless of when, where or with whom he did it. Instead, they seized on every opportunity they could to condemn Jesus for it.
Isn’t it amazing, how someone doing what is right can bring out the worst in others? As we’ll see in tomorrow’s continuation of Chapter 12 of Matthew’s Gospel, the Pharisees’ misery rises ultimately to the level where they decide to put Jesus to death.
Well, what about us? Have we ever seen somebody else doing something merciful and generous at a time or in a place or in a way with which we did not agree and attempted to discredit them?
Put another way, who would we like others to see and experience in us – the merciful Jesus or the miserable Pharisee?
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“Woe to those who plan iniquity, and work out evil on their couches…”
Oh, come on! Who actually plans iniquity? Who actually sits around and plans on doing evil?
How about those who gossip? How about those who bad-mouth others or who disparage others in speech? In his Introduction to the Devout Life, Francis de Sales observed:
“To scoff at others is one of the worst states in which a mind can find itself. God detests this vice and in past times inflicted strange punishments on it. Nothing is so opposed to charity – and much more to devotion – than to despise and condemn one’s neighbors. Derision and mockery are always accompanied by scoffing, and it is therefore a very great sin. Theologians consider it one of the worst offenses against one’s neighbor of which a person can be guilty. Other offenses may be committed with some esteem for the person offended, but this treats a person with scorn and contempt.” (IDL, Part III, Chapter 27, pp. 195-196)
We all know from our own experience that speaking negatively about others is all too easy. Be it planned or spontaneous, God is very clear: woe to those who engage in evil things, evil things like bad-mouthing others.
Today, what strategies might we employ to avoid woes like these?
Spirituality Matters: July 7th - July 13th
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“A prophet is not without honor except in his native place and among his own kin and in his own house.”
The account in today’s Gospel is but one of many episodes in which Jesus experienced rejection. People “took offense” at him because of his dedication and devotion to doing God’s Will in his own life. So strong was this resistance and rejection in his native place that “he was not able to perform any mighty deed” there.
The temptation that Jesus faced – the temptation we all face – is to be more concerned about being accepted by others than to stick to our convictions, when confronted by rejection. We are tempted to dilute the truth, to lower our standards and to avoid anything that “rocks the boat”. We are tempted to win friends at all costs, but unfortunately, we lose ourselves in the process.
St. Francis de Sales, the gentleman saint, was a man who tried his best to speak and live the truth of the Gospel in a humble, gentle and friendly way. For all his powers of persuasion, though, he, also experienced rejection. In his Introduction to the Devout Life, he writes:
“As soon as people see that you wish to follow a devout life, they aim a thousand darts of mockery and detraction at you. The most slanderous of them will slander your devotion as hypocrisy, bigotry and trickery. Your friends will raise a lot of objections which they consider very prudent and charitable: they will tell you that you will become depressed, lose your reputation in the world, become unbearable, 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.” (Part IV, Chapter 1)
Ouch! It seems (by some standards, at least) that the Good News is not always so good - or, at least, not very easy - for the folks who try to live it!
To be sure, we sometimes need to look for the kernels of truth that may be contained in criticism and rejection. Are we arrogant? Are we strident? Are we too pushy or stubborn? Is it really God’s Will that we are promoting or is it our own? Still, if our conscience is clear, how do we deal with rejection?
Francis de Sales’ advises:
“Be firm in your purposes and unswerving in your resolutions. Perseverance will prove whether you are sincerely sacrificing yourself to God and dedicating yourself to living a devout life.” He concludes: “The world may hold us to be fools.”
Like Jesus, rejection is a price – however painful – that we must sometimes be willing to pay. And so today, if rejection comes our way, how will we deal with it?
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“Courage! Your faith has saved you…”
How many times does Jesus make this statement (or ones similar to it) in the context of performing a miracle? Some might interpret his words as gratuitous. They might view these words as Jesus’ attempt to make the beneficiaries patronize them into thinking that they contributed – somehow, even in some small way - to the releasing of His life-changing power.
Those who would interpret Jesus’ words as patronizing would be wrong – dead wrong.
When Jesus says, “Your faith has saved you”, He is simply speaking the truth. The two miracles in today’s Gospel illustrate this point. In both cases (an official with a dead daughter and a woman with a chronic illness) the story that ends with the daughter being raised from the dead and the woman being cured from her hemorrhage were set into motion because someone had the courage to approach Jesus with a request and/or an intuition: “Come, lay your hand on her, and she will live” and “If only I can touch his cloak, I shall be cured”.
What if the official had been too proud to ask Jesus for help? What if the woman had been too ashamed to reach out to Jesus? Fortunately for them, each of them was (1) humble enough to acknowledge their need, and (2) courageous enough to ask for help.
How about us? Are there any needs that we (or those we love) have that we believe only Jesus has the power to address? Are we humble enough to name those needs for ourselves? Are we courageous enough to bring those needs to Jesus?
Do you believe your faith in Jesus can save you?
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"At the sight of the crowds his heart was moved…”
In commenting upon the Beatitude, “Blessed are those who mourn…” William Barclay wrote: “It is first of all to be noted about this beatitude that the Greek word for to mourn – used here – is the strongest word for mourning in the Greek language. It is the mourning that is used for mourning for the dead, for the passionate lament for one who was loved…it is defined as the kind of grief that takes such a hold on a man that it cannot be hidden. It is not only the sorrow which brings an ache to the heart; it is the sorrow which brings the unrestrained tear to the eyes…” (The Daily Study Bible: The Gospel of Matthew, Volume 1, p. 93)
In the case of Jesus, it is this sorrow that moves his heart and releases miraculous power!
In his Introduction to the Devout Life, Francis de Sales cites one of two virtues associated with mourning or sadness: “Compassion”. (IDL, Part IV, Chapter 12, p. 253) At the sight of the man with a dead daughter and the woman with a chronic illness in yesterday’s Gospel, Jesus’ heart was deeply moved: the woman was cured, and the girl was raised. In today’s Gospel Jesus’ heart was deeply moved as He taught in synagogues, proclaimed the Gospel of the Kingdom, and cured every disease and illness. At the sight of the crowds, Jesus’ heart was moved. Feeling overwhelmed by the sheer size and scale of the neediness that He himself was encountering in others, Jesus asked His disciples to pray that God send more laborers for His harvest. In tomorrow’s Gospel, Jesus’ heart will move Him to go a step further with this request: He himself will commission his disciples to be those very laborers.
Whenever Jesus’ heart was moved by the sight of others’ needs, power was released in Him. The people were taught; the sick were healed; the possessed were freed; the lost were found and the dead were raised. These actions are at the heart of compassion, because it’s not enough merely to feel sorry for someone else’s plight. Compassion requires that we do something to address another’s plight. Compassion is more than just feeling; compassion is about doing.
Today, are we willing to take our rightful place as laborers for God’s harvest? At the sight of other people’s needs, will our hearts – like the heart of Jesus himself – be moved to meet their needs? In other words, will we respond with compassion?
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“Sow for yourselves justice, reap the fruit of piety.”
Wikipedia defines piety as “a virtue that can mean religious devotion, spirituality or a combination of both. A common element in most conceptions is humility.” Merriam-Webster defines piety as (1) “the quality of being religious or reverent,” and (2) “the quality of being dutiful.” Synonyms include: “devoutness, godliness, religiousness and devotion.”
In a letter to Madame de Limojon, Francis de Sales wrote:
“I have said this to you in person, madam, and now I write it: I don’t want a devotion that is bizarre, confused, neurotic, strained, and sad, but rather, a gentle, attractive, peaceful piety; in a word, a piety that is quite spontaneous and wins the love of God, first of all, and after that, the love of others.” (Letters of Spiritual Direction, p. 156)
As Francis de Sales understood it, piety is less a function of how many prayers we say, how many spiritual exercises we perform or how many hours we spend on our knees (although these things do have their place!). No, piety is more about being devout, about being “dutiful,” that is, about honoring what is due to God and honoring what is due to our neighbor.
In other words, piety is about justice; piety is about doing what is right.
In his Treatise on the Love of God, (Book XI, Chapter 3, p. 202) Francis observed:
“Of all virtuous actions we ought most carefully practice those of religion and reverence for divine things. Such are the acts of faith, hope and holy fear of God. We must often speak of heavenly things, think of eternity and sigh for it, frequent churches and sacred services, read devout books and observe the ceremonies of the Christian religion…” Provided, of course, that all these nourish “sacred love.”
Today, do you want to reap “the fruit of piety”? Then, sow justice for God and sow justice for others.\*\*\*\*\*
“Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give.”
What could be more humbling than to consider all the good that God has, is and will do done for us? Well, perhaps even more humbling is the realization that God’s goodness, mercy and generosity come without cost or condition. Insofar as we are created from nothing, we have done nothing to deserve God’s overwhelming blessings, gifts and love. They are unconditionally free gifts!
In a conference to the Sisters of the Visitation on the virtue of generosity, Francis de Sales remarked:
“We must indeed keep ourselves humble because of our imperfections, but this humility must be the foundation of a great generosity. Humility without generosity is only a deception and a cowardice of the heart that makes us think that we are good for nothing and that others should never think of using us in anything great. On the other hand, generosity without humility is only presumption. We may indeed say, ‘It is true I have no virtue, still less the necessary gifts to be used in such and such an endeavor,’ but after that humble acknowledgement we must put our full confidence in God as to believe that He will not fail to give His gifts to us when it is necessary to have them, and when He wants us to make use of us, provided only that we forget ourselves in praising faithfully His Divine majesty and helping our neighbor to do the same so as to increase His glory as much as lies in our power. ” (Living Jesus, p. 152)
On one level it is true to say that we are “nothing”, creatures that we are. But because of the God who has created us, each and every one of us is – in God’s eyes – marvelous to behold. What a humbling, empowering gift!
What better way to say “thank you” for such gift than to freely and generously share who we are and what we have with one another?
Today!
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“Do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say…”
In a letter to Jane de Chantal in 1606, Francis de Sales wrote:
“I cannot think of anything else to say to you about your apprehension of your particular troubles, nor of the fear of being unable to bear it. Did I not tell you the first time I spoke to you about your soul that you pay too much attention to what afflicts or frightens you? You must do so only in great moderation! People frequently reflect too much about their troubles and this entangles thoughts and fears and desires to the point that the soul is constricted and cannot be itself. Don’t be afraid of what God has in store for you – love God very much for He wants to do you a great deal of good. Carry on quite simply in the shelter of your resolutions and reject anticipations of your troubles as simply a cruel temptation…Fear is a greater evil than the evil itself, but if terror should seize you cry out loudly to God. He will stretch forth his hand towards you – grab it tightly and go joyfully on your way.” (Selected Letters, Stopp, pp. 124 -125)
Francis de Sales recommends that we begin every new day with what he calls a “preparation of the day”. Consider all the things you may need to accomplish today. Think about the people and situations that you may encounter today. When you finish, does anything, place or person you may face today make you worry, anxious or fearful?
Then, take hold of God’s hand, and do your best to go joyfully through your day!
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“Do not be afraid…”
In the same letter that we considered yesterday, Francis de Sales wrote to Jane de Chantal concerning the issues of worry, anxiety and fear. We read:
“Don’t philosophize about your trouble – don’t argue with it. Quite simply, continue to walk straight on. God would not allow you to be lost while you live according to your resolutions so as not to lose him. If the whole world turns topsy-turvy, if all around is darkness and smoke and din, yet God is still with us. So, if we know that God lives in the darkness and on Mount Sinai which is full of smoke and surrounded with the roar of thunder and lightning, shall not all be well with us as long as we remain close to him? So, live wholly in God, and do not fear. Jesus in his goodness is all ours; let us be all his. Let us cling to him with courage!” (Selected Letters, Stopp, pp. 124 -125)
This exhortation is very challenging! After all, who can say that they have never been afraid, worried or anxious? Doesn’t even the Book of Proverbs (9:10) claim that “fear (of the Lord) is the beginning of wisdom?” Some things should scare us!
Let’s look at it this way. While we may have our share of fears in life, it is critical that we try our level best to avoid becoming people who are fearful and remain people who are joyful!
Spirituality Matters: June 30th - July 6th
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"God did not make death, nor does God rejoice in the destruction of the living."
"Just as you excel in every respect, so may you excel in this gracious act also…”
Death is an unavoidable part of life. In truth, long before each of us takes our last breath, we will experience many little deaths throughout our lives: occasions of loss, disappointment, surrender and letting go.
Francis de Sales offers this advice to all people who, while celebrating God's gift of life, also accept the reality of death:
“How worthwhile it is really to understand that we are only given this life so as to gain eternal life! Without this knowledge we fix our affections on what is in this world through which we are passing; when it comes to leaving it, we are dismayed and full of fear. Believe me, if we are to live happily during this pilgrimage, we must keep alive before our eyes the hope of arriving in our homeland where we shall stay for all eternity.” (Selected Letters by Elizabeth Stopp, p. 261)
Life is full of so many people, relationships, gifts, blessings, challenges and endeavors that enhance and nourish the human spirit! How do we truly, fully and completely enjoy them without clinging to them?
The answer - by being generous!
So, look no further than to the example of Jesus himself. Jesus, the Son of God, the one in whom, through whom and for whom all things exist, “made himself poor so that we might become rich.” (2 Cor. 8) Jesus did not cling to all that was good and blessed here on earth for his own consumption or satisfaction. No, his satisfaction was found in generously sharing all of whom he was and what he possessed with others. Jesus conquered sin and death precisely because he had committed himself to the path of generosity during the course of his life.
In the face of limitation, in the face of setback, in the face of sin and in the face of surrender we are tempted to cling exclusively to all the good that God gives us. However, Jesus shows us another way. Insofar as we are willing to respond to the experiences of loss and letting go by generously sharing ourselves with others, we are destined to conquer death and come to understand what it means to truly live. If there is anything that we truly possess and never lose in this life, let it be our commitment to perform good works, to make real and tangible the richness of God's love in us, and to generously share God's love and good works with one another.
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“You sit speaking against your brother; against your mother’s son you spread rumors…Shall I be deaf to it? I will correct you by drawing them up before your eyes.” (Responsorial Psalm)
In his Introduction to the Devout Life, Francis de Sales exhorted:
“Never slander anyone either directly or indirectly. Beware of falsely imputing crimes and sins to your neighbor, revealing his secret sins, exaggerating those that are manifest, putting an evil interpretation on his good works, denying the good that you know belongs to someone or maliciously concealing it or lessening it by words. You would offend God in all these ways but most of all by false accusations and denying the truth to your neighbor’s harm. It is a double sin to lie and harm your neighbor at the same time.” (IDL, Part III, Chapter 29, p. 202)
Let’s say that we are making progress in refraining from saying anything against other people that would either exaggerate their vices or diminish their virtues. Let’s say that our consciences are clear because we are making strides in refraining from bad-mouthing other people or putting other people down. Are we in the clear? Not quite! At least, not in St. Francis de Sales’ opinion, for in the same chapter he stated:
“When you hear anyone spoken ill of, make the accusation doubtful if you can do so justly. If you cannot, excuse the intention of the accused party. If that cannot be done, express sympathy for that person change the subject of conversation, reminding yourself and others that those who do not fall into sin owe it all to God’s grace. Confront the slanderer in a mild way and tell of some good deed of the offended party if you are aware of any.” (Ibid, pp. 205-206)
Do you want to rid the world of rumors? It isn’t enough to refrain from spreading them ourselves, but we must also be willing to speak up when we hear them spread by others.
Today, if you hear something uncharitable, say something! Like God, don’t be deaf to it – address it!
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"Why are you terrified?”
Given the fact that the disciples were caught out on open water in a violent storm would be plenty of reason to be terrified, regardless of whether Jesus was with them or not. In the event, the disciples’ terror quickly subsided, when they witnessed the calming power of Jesus.
In a letter to Madame Gasparde de Ballon, Francis de Sales wrote:
“Regarding your fears, they are the work of the enemy who sees that you are quite determined to live in Our Lord without any reserves and exceptions. The evil one will make every sort of effort to upset you and make the way of holy devotion seem hard for you. What you must do to counteract this is to open your heart and often repeat your protestation never to give in, always to keep faith, to love the challenges of God’s service more than the sweetness of the world’s service and to say that you will never leave God’s side. Be careful not to give up on prayer, for that would be playing into the hand of your adversary. Instead, continue to go steadfastly with this holy exercise and wait for Our Lord to speak to you, for one day he will say words of peace and consolation to you. Then you will know that your trouble will have been well spent and your patience and trust useful…Say often: May Jesus reign!’” (Selected Letters, Stopp, pp. 225 - 226)
We all have things in life that should concern, scare - and even - terrify us. Jesus is not asking us to never be fearful or even terrified; rather, Jesus asks us to trust him precisely in times of timidity, tempests and terror.
No matter how daunting the storms of life may be, do not allow them to shake your faith in God’s love for you and fidelity to you. Regardless of how your boat may get rocked during the course of your life, Jesus will never – never – abandon you. He will either calm the storms for you or ride them out with you.
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"Unless I see the mark of the nails…I will not believe.”
In the same chapter (“On Slander”) to which we referred during Monday’s homiletic reflection, Francis de Sales wrote:
“Do not say that so-and-so is a drunkard even though you have seen him intoxicated, or that so-and-so is an adulterer even if you saw him in his sin, or that so-and-so is incestuous because he has been guilty of a certain depraved deed. A single act is not enough to justify the name of vice...To deserve the name of a vice or a virtue, there must be some advance in an act and it must be habitual. Hence it is untrue to say that so-and-so is bad-tempered or a thief simply because we once saw him in a fit of anger or guilty of theft…We must not draw conclusions from yesterday to today, nor from today to yesterday, and still less to tomorrow.” (IDL, Part III, Chapter 29, p. 202)
So why is it, then, that we continue to refer to the Apostle whose life and legacy we celebrate today as “Doubting Thomas”. It has been nearly two thousand years since he declared to his peers what it would take for him to believe that Jesus was risen. Why should we vilify Thomas for being honest? Why should we beat up on Thomas for speaking from his heart?
Jesus certainly didn’t!
Jesus didn’t scold Thomas for his declaration. Jesus didn’t refuse Thomas’ request. Quite the contrary! Jesus showed him his hands and his side, and said, in effect: See my wounds? You bet! Touch my hands and side? Absolutely! If that’s what it’s going to take to convince you that I’m real, Thomas, then by all means do it!” It was then that Thomas believed that the person who was standing in front of him was the same Jesus with whom he walked for three years - the same Jesus, who spent his ministry meeting people where they were, now offered the same courtesy to him.
In the closing scene from the film Red Dragon, Dr. Hannibal Lector’s character opined: “Our scars have the power to remind us that the past was real.” Perhaps Thomas intuited that only the scars left by Jesus’ humiliation, passion and death could convince him that Jesus had conquered death! Perhaps this is what prompted Thomas’ request. Perhaps that’s why Thomas had the courage to speak his truth despite the giddy euphoria of the other Apostles who had previously seen Jesus. Can you really blame Thomas for not taking their word?
Come to think of it, it is remarkable that the experience of resurrection did not remove the wounds of Jesus - the lasting marks of pain, disappointment, misunderstanding, rejection, humiliation, abandonment, suffering and death. Notwithstanding these wounds, however, Christ's resurrection powerfully demonstrated that pain, sadness, suffering and injustice -- as real as they were -- did not, ultimately, wield the last word. While suffering was clearly a part of Jesus’ life, there was so much more to his life than only suffering.
Maybe it’s time for us to retire the moniker “Doubting Thomas” and replace it from this day forward with “Believing Thomas”!
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“Seek good and not evil, that you may live; Hate evil and love good, and let justice prevail at the gate; Let justice surge like water, and goodness like an unfailing stream.”
IN CONGRESS,
July 4, 1776.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America.
“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary…to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them…We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Do you want to have Life, and to have Life in abundance? Do you want to experience true Liberty? Do you want to experience lasting Happiness? Then serve God! Show in your own life – and in the lives of others – the power and promise that comes with giving homage to God! How can we do that?
- Seek good by pursuing and promoting the God-given, unalienable gifts of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness with others, and
- stop evil by confronting and containing anything that threatens these same God-given, unalienable gifts.
Using the language of the Salesian tradition, we are most free when we pay homage to God by treating ourselves and others with profound respect and reverence. And isn’t this self-evident!
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“I desire mercy, not sacrifice.”
In today’s Gospel, we are considering two related – but remarkably different – notions of what it means to be God-like. We are considering two related – but remarkably different – models for growing in holiness.
The tension between mercy and sacrifice is not something invented by Jesus, but it is as old as the Hebrew community itself. It is as old as the human family itself (Cain and Abel – Abraham and Isaac). But Jesus does make this issue front and center in his ongoing struggle with the Scribes and Pharisees.
Under the paradigm of SACRIFICE, holiness is all about proving my fidelity to God. It is all about showing God that I love God enough to go without food for a day, to slaughter a bull, to walk so many miles in my bare feet or to donate $5 million to my church’s capital campaign. Mind you, none of these things are wrong per se, but when holiness is understood almost exclusively as sacrifice, the danger is that it may ultimately lead to loving God to the exclusion of loving my neighbor.
The ancient Israelite prophets frequently criticized their people for somehow attempting to pit the love of God against the love of neighbor. In the prophet Isaiah, we hear:
“The multitude of your sacrifices – what are they to me?’ says the Lord. ‘I have more than enough burnt offerings, or rams and the fat of fattened animals. Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed.” (1: 11 – 17)
By contrast, the MERCY paradigm of holiness emphasizes the need to integrate the two components of Jesus’ Great Commandment exemplified in the words of 1 John 4:12:
“No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and love is made complete in us.”
Not to put too fine a point on it, but loving God and loving neighbor can never be separated. They are indeed two indispensable sides of the very same coin. The goal of holiness that we pursue in praying, fasting, singing songs of praise, donating blood making meals for the homeless and every other act of piety and mercy is not to prove anything to God but to give God complete influence over our hearts.
Sacrifice can be extremely beneficial when it is a means for submitting ourselves more completely to God’s mercy and not a substitute for it. For example, fasting can teach us to be aware of our own hungers and our need for God to feed us as a remedy for the pride of self-sufficiency. However, if God indeed desires mercy over sacrifice, the commands that God gives us are not intended to be tests of our loyalty to God but rather a pathway for allowing His reign of mercy to reign in our hearts - a reign expressed through our exercise of mercy toward one another.
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“Why do we and the Pharisees fast much, but your disciples do not fast?”
In his Introduction to the Devout Life, Francis de Sales observed:
“If you can stand fasting, you will do well to fast on certain days in addition to those prescribed by the Church. Besides the usual effects of fasting, namely, elevating our spirits, keeping the body in submission, practicing virtue and gaining greater reward in heaven, it is valuable for restraining gluttony and keeping our sensual appetites and body subject to the law of the spirit.” (IDL, Part III, Chapter 23, p. 185)
From a Salesian perspective, there is a place for fasting in the spiritual life. However, fasting is not the only method for “elevating our spirits, keeping the body in submission, practicing virtue and gaining greater reward in heaven.” So is work!
Francis continued:
“Both fasting and labor mortify and subdue the flesh. If your work is necessary for you to contribute to God’s glory, I prefer that you endure the pains of work rather than that of fasting. Such is the mind of the Church…One man finds it difficult to fast, while another is called to care for the sick, visit prisoners, hear confessions, preach, comfort the afflicted, pray and perform similar tasks. These latter disciplines are of greater value than the first: besides subduing the body, they produce much more desirable fruits.” (Ibid, pp. 185 – 186)
Why didn’t Jesus’ disciples fast? It seems they were too busy contributing to God’s glory by serving the needs of others.
There are two ways of contributing to God’s glory: fasting (doing without) and laboring (doing).
Today, which way will you pursue today?
Spirituality Matters: June 23rd - June 29th
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"Why are you terrified?”
Given the fact that the disciples were caught out on open water in a violent storm would be plenty of reason to be terrified, regardless of whether Jesus was with them or not. In the event, the disciples’ terror quickly subsided, when they witnessed the calming power of Jesus.
In a letter to Madame Gasparde de Ballon, Francis de Sales wrote:
“Regarding your fears, they are the work of the enemy who sees that you are quite determined to live in Our Lord without any reserves and exceptions. The evil one will make every sort of effort to upset you and make the way of holy devotion seem hard for you. What you must do to counteract this is to open your heart and often repeat your protestation never to give in, always to keep faith, to love the challenges of God’s service more than the sweetness of the world’s service and to say that you will never leave God’s side. Be careful not to give up on prayer, for that would be playing into the hand of your adversary. Instead, continue to go steadfastly with this holy exercise and wait for Our Lord to speak to you, for one day he will say words of peace and consolation to you. Then you will know that your trouble will have been well spent and your patience and trust useful…Say often: May Jesus reign!’” (Selected Letters, Stopp, pp. 225 - 226)
We all have things in life that should concern, scare - and even - terrify us. Jesus is not asking us to never be fearful or even terrified; rather, Jesus asks us to trust him precisely in times of timidity, tempests and terror.
No matter how daunting the storms of life may be, do not allow them to shake your faith in God’s love for you and fidelity to you. Regardless of how your boat may get rocked during the course of your life, Jesus will never – never – abandon you. He will either calm the storms for you or ride them out with you.
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“I make you a light to the nations that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”
Francis de Sales wrote:
“I have often wondered who is the most mortified of the saints that I know, and after some reflection I have concluded that it was St. John the Baptist. He went into the desert when he was five years old and knew that our Savior came to earth in a place quite close by, perhaps only one or two days’ journey. How his heart, touched with love of his Savior from the time he was in his mother’s womb, must have longed to enjoy Christ’s presence. Yet, he spends twenty-five years in the desert without coming to see our Lord even once; and leaving the desert he catechized without visiting him but waiting until our Lord comes to seek him out. Then, after he has baptized Jesus, he does not follow him but stays behind to do his appointed task. How truly mortified was John’s spirit! To be so near his Savior and not see him, to have Him so close and not enjoy His presence! Is this not a completely detached spirit, detached even from God himself so as to do God’s will, and to serve God, as it were to leave God for God, and not to cling to God in order to love him better? The example of this great saint overwhelms me with its grandeur.” (Stopp, Selected Letters, Page 74)
“How truly mortified was John the Baptist’s spirit.” What does Francis de Sales mean? The American Heritage Dictionary defines mortify as “to discipline by self-denial or self-inflicted privation.” John did, indeed, discipline himself. He denied himself many things in order to be faithful to his understanding of the person God wanted him to be: a light to the nations, a light to highlight the coming of Jesus.
Think about it: John spends his entire life preparing to announce Christ’s coming. Despite growing up in the same general area, John meets Christ only once – when John baptized him at the Jordan River – and then remains behind as Jesus recruited others to be his apostles and disciples! John never sees his cousin again before dying in prison at the hands of one of King Herod’s executioners.
John was faithful to the role God wanted him to play in the plan of salvation. John played that role supremely well. Listen to what Jesus himself said: “I tell you the truth: among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist.” (Matthew 11: 11) “Yet,” Jesus continues, “Anyone who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” John shows us that being faithful to God’s will often requires that we deprive ourselves of the desire to “have it all” and to dedicate ourselves to discerning – and embracing – our unique roles in God’s plan of salvation.
In ways unique to our states and stages of life, God calls us also to be “a light to the nations.” Are we prepared to practice the discipline required to be that light?
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“How narrow the gate and constricted the road that leads to life…”
Striving for perfection or growing in holiness or “living Jesus” is a formidable challenge. Embracing a life of virtue requires strength and courage. Renouncing sin requires strength and courage. Turning a deaf ear to temptation requires strength and courage. On any given day, our progress in devotion is marked by both success and failure.
However, this striving to be holy is made even more difficult when we attempt to be holy in a way that doesn’t fit our state or stage of life - a way of living that doesn’t fit who we are. While we are all indeed called to be holy, we are not called to be holy in the in exactly the same way as others. Francis reminds us:
“Devotion (holiness) must be exercised in different ways by the gentleman, the worker, the servant, the prince the widow the young girl and the married woman. I ask you, is it fitting for a bishop to want to live a solitary life like a monk? Or for a married man to want to own no more property than a monk, for a skilled workman to spend his whole day in a church, for a religious to be constantly subject to every sort of call in service to one’s neighbor, which is more suited to the bishop? Would not such holiness be laughable, confused and impossible to live?” (IDL, Part I, Chapter 2)
Francis de Sales put it another way in a Conference (On the Virtues of St. Joseph) to the early Visitation community: “Some of the saints excelled in one virtue, some in another, and although all have saved their souls, they have done so in very different ways, there being as many different kinds of sanctity as there are saints.” (Conference XIX, p. 365) A more contemporary reflection on this issue comes from Nobel prize-winning author and holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel: “There are a thousand and one gates leading into the orchard of mystical truth. Every human being has his or her own gate. We make a mistake of wanting to enter the orchard by any gate other than our own.” (Night, Page 3)
To be sure, if there is indeed one model of Christian holiness, we find that model in Jesus Christ, the one in whom all of us are consecrated. But to be holy - as Jesus is holy - is not about trying to be like someone else. Rather, being holy is about having the strength, integrity and courage to be who God wants each one of us to be, precisely in the places, circumstances and relationships in which we find ourselves each day. Today, where will you find your gate to holiness?
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“By their fruits you will know them…”
Imagine yourself walking through a lush forest in which you encounter a variety of fruit-bearing plants. What would you expect to find along the boughs of an apple tree? Why, apples, of course! What would you expect to find hanging from the branches of a peach tree? Peaches, no doubt! What would you expect to find near the top of a banana tree? Clearly, you’d look for bananas! You approach grape vines. What would you expect to find throughout them? You’d hope to see grapes!
In the opening chapters of his Introduction to the Devout Life, Francis de Sales wrote: “When he created things God commanded plants to bring forth their fruits, each one according to its kind. In like manner he commands Christians, the living plants of his Church, to bring forth the fruits of devotion, each one according to his position and vocation.” (IDL, Part I, Chapter 3)
Insofar as we are “living plants of the Church,” what kind of fruit(s) should we be producing? He offers some ideas in a letter he wrote four hundred years ago to Mademoiselle de Soulfour: “Let us practice those ordinary virtues suited to our littleness…patience, forbearance toward our neighbor, service to others, humility, gentleness of heart, affability, tolerance of our own imperfections and similar little virtues…” (LSD, p. 98)
Today, how will other people describe us by the fruits that they discover growing in and from us today?
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“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the Kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven…”
In his Introduction to the Devout Life, Francis de Sales wrote: “You must be ready to suffer many great afflictions for our Lord, even martyrdom itself. However, as long as divine Providence does not send you great, piercing afflictions…bear patiently the slight inconveniences, the little inconveniences and the inconsequential losses that daily come to you…All such little trials when accepted and embraced with love are highly pleasing to God’s mercy.” (IDL, Part II, Chapter 35, pp. 213-214) When it comes to entering the Kingdom of God, talk is cheap. As we see clearly in the example of Abram, Sarai, and so many others in the selections from the Book of Genesis that we have been hearing this week, there’s a lot less lips service involved with following God’s will and a great deal more hearing – to say nothing of doing it! How far are we willing to go this day in attempting to follow the will of God – by doing it?
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“Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean.”
In his Treatise on the Love of God, Francis de Sales observed:
“The truth is that our Savior’s redemption touches our sins and makes them more beneficial and worthy of love than original innocence could ever have been. After all, Our Savior himself tells us that there ‘is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just people who have no need of repentance.’” “So, too, the state of redemption is a hundred times better than that of innocence. Truly, by the watering of our Savior’s blood - made with the hyssop of the cross - we have been restored to a white incomparably better and brighter than that found in the snows of innocence. Like Naaman, we emerge from the stream of salvation purer and cleaner than if we had never had leprosy in the first place.”
Can God make us clean? Yes. Can God heal us and make us whole? Yes. Can God restore us to life and to love? Yes.
All this, and so much more.
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“I have competed well; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith.”
Today we celebrate the Solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul – Apostles.
Of Saint Peter, Francis de Sales wrote: “St. Peter was chosen to be the chief of the Apostles, although he was subject to so many imperfections that he even committed some after he had received the Holy Spirit, because, notwithstanding these defects, he was always full of courage, never allowing himself to be dismayed by his shortcomings.” (Conferences, Number IV, Page 63)
Francis expounds upon this duality of Peter’s nature in his Treatise on the Love of God. “Who would not marvel at the heart of St. Peter, so bold among armed soldiers that out of all of his master’s company he alone takes his sword in hand and strikes out with it? Yet a little afterwards among ordinary people he is so cowardly that at the mere word of a servant girl he denies and detests his master.” (TLG, Book X, Chapter 9, p, 167)
Now let us turn our attention to some of what Francis de Sales said about St. Paul. “He fights for all people, he pours forth prayers for all people, he is passionately jealous in behalf of all people, and he is on fire for all people. Yes, he even dared more than this for ‘those according to the flesh,’ so that, if I dare to say so, he desires by charity that they may be put in his place with Jesus Christ. O perfection of courage and unbelievable spirit!” (Treatise, Book X, Chapter 16, pp. 188 – 189)
Of course, as in the case of Peter, Paul, too, has his shortcomings. In a letter of encouragement to a sister of the Visitation, Francis wrote: “Do not be ashamed…any more than St. Paul who confessed that there were two men in him, one rebellious to God and the other obedient to God.” (Stopp, Selected Letters, page 224.)
“I competed well; I have finished the race.” Paul wrote these words, but they could also be said of Peter. But note well – they both finished well. By contrast, look at their earlier track records. Peter was called “Satan” by Jesus and Peter denied Him three times. While Paul, he began his public life by persecuting the early Church as Saul. Neither man’s resumes were particularly impressive!
When it comes to being an apostle, a disciple or follower of Jesus Christ, perhaps this is the most important thing to remember – as imperfect as we are, where we’ve been isn’t nearly as important as where we are going with the grace of God and the support of one another.
All’s well that ends well!
Spirituality Matters: June 16th - June 22nd
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“To what shall we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable can we use for it? It is like a mustard seed…”
Today’s readings help us to keep things in perspective. Make no mistake – we are called to follow in the footsteps of Jesus Christ. While we are charged with a tremendous duty - advancing the kingdom of God - the most effective means to accomplish this great calling is to pay attention to detail – that is, by doing little things with great love.
In his Introduction to the Devout Life, Francis de Sales made the following exhortation:
“Put your hand to strong things, by training yourself in prayer and meditation, receiving the sacraments, bringing souls to love God, infusing good inspirations into their hearts and, in fine, by performing big, important works according to your vocation. But never forget…those little, humble virtues that grow like flowers at the foot of the cross: helping the poor, visiting the sick, taking care of your family, with all the responsibilities that accompany such things and with all the useful diligence which prompts you to not stand idle.”
“Great opportunities to serve God rarely present themselves, but little ones are frequent…you will profit greatly in God’s sight by doing all these things because God wishes you to do them.” (III, 35, pp. 214 – 215)
God gives each one of us a rich abundance of means proper for our salvation. By a wondrous infusion of God’s grace into our minds, hearts, attitudes and actions, the Spirit makes our works become God’s work. Our good works - like planting miniscule mustard seeds here or like scattering small seeds there - have vigor and virtue enough to produce a great good because they proceed from the Spirit of Jesus.
As it turns out, little things really do mean a lot in the eyes of God. In fact, they mean everything!
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“He refused to let me have his vineyard…”
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines presumptuous as: “Overstepping due bounds (as of propriety or courtesy); taking liberties.”
The story from today’s selection from the First Book of Kings illustrates how one person’s desire can all-too-quickly become an obsession…with disastrous results. Ahab had his heart set of acquiring Naboth’s vineyard. When Ahab’s offer to purchase Naboth’s property was rebuffed, he couldn’t let it go. Undeterred, Ahab and his wife plotted to have Naboth first discredited and subsequently stoned to death. Once dead, Ahab could easily acquire Naboth’s property. Ahab felt entitled to take liberties with others. He believed that other people’s possessions were his for the taking, notwithstanding the fact that other people weren’t offering their possessions! Having little or no sense of boundaries, this presumptuous behavior – as we shall see tomorrow – ended badly for all concerned.
In his Introduction to the Devout Life, Francis de Sales wrote:
“I think you will agree that what I about to describe is both unjust and unreasonable…we want our neighbor to give up his property and take our money for it. Is it not more reasonable that we simply allow him to keep his property while he allows us to keep our money?” (Part III, Chapter 36, p. 216)
It’s very tempting to tell other people how they should live their lives. It’s all-too-easy to expect other people to make us the center of their universe. In a letter written to Madame Brulart, Francis de Sales counseled:
“Don’t sow your desires in someone else’s garden. Just cultivate your own as best you can.” (Letters of Spiritual Direction, p. 112)
By all means follow your dreams and pursue your plans…just remember to extend the same courtesy to everyone else.
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“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…”
It’s safe to say that we all have enemies. We all have people in our lives that we do not like. We all have people in our lives whose company we avoid. We all have people in our lives that rub us the wrong way. We all have people in our lives that push our buttons. We all have people in our lives that drive us crazy.
In a conference to the Sisters of the Visitation, Francis de Sales observed:
“Antipathies are certain inclinations which excite in us a certain repugnance toward those about whom we entertain these feelings…If I feel a repugnance to conversing with a person whom I know to be most excellent – and from whom I mighty learn much that would do me good – I must not succumb to the antipathy which prompts me to avoid his company. On the contrary, I must discipline myself to listen to the voice of reason telling me rather to seek his company or at least, if I am already in it, to remain there in quiet, peaceful mind…People who are of a harsh, severe disposition will dislike those who are gentle and mild. They will regard such gentleness as extreme weakness, though indeed it is a quality most universally beloved. What remedy is there for these antipathies, since no one, however perfect, can be exempt from them? The only remedy for this evil – as indeed for all other kinds of temptation – is simply to turn away from it and think no more about it…We should never try to justify our reasons for our antipathies, let alone wishing to nourish them. If you have simply a natural, instinctive dislike for anyone, I beseech you to pay no attention to it; turn away your thoughts from it and so trick your mind. When, however, you find these antipathies going too far you must fight against them and overcome them, for reason will never permit us to foster antipathies and evil inclinations for fear of offending God.” (Conference XVI, pp. 298 - 301)
Francis knows the human heart very well. He acknowledges that “this instinctive tendency to love some more than others is natural.” (Ibid) Likes and dislikes are part-and-parcel of life. That said, Jesus commands us to love our enemies. Jesus commands us to love those whom we dislike. Jesus commands us to love those who get on our nerves. Like it or not!
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“Take care not to perform righteous deeds…that others might see them.”
In a letter to Madame de la Flechere, Francis de Sales observed:
“Humility is the virtue of virtues, but a humility that is generous and peaceable. Preserve a spirit of holy joy which – modestly spreading over your words and actions – gives consolation to the good people who see you, that thus they may glorify God, which is your only aim.” (Living Jesus, p. 150)
Jesus calls us to “perform righteous deeds.” He calls us to live a life of virtue. That said, Jesus cautions us against doing so to win the applause, praise or adulation of others.
Let’s try our level best this day to do the right thing for others. Let’s try our level best to do it for the right reason: to the praise and glory of God!
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“Thy will be done…”
In a sermon on the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Francis de Sales preached:
“People who, like Martha, are desirous and anxious to do something for Our Lord believe they are very devout and believe that this eagerness is a virtue. However, this is no so, as He Himself would have us understand. Only one thing is required, that is, to have God and possess Him. If I seek only Him, what does it matter to me if I have to do one thing or another? If I desire only His will, what will it matter to me if I have to do one thing or another? If I desire only His will, what will it matter to me whether I am sent to Spain or to Ireland? If I seek only His cross, why should I be troubled if I am sent to the Indies, or to old countries or to new countries, since I am certain that I shall find it everywhere?” (Living Jesus p. 436)
These words are not mere pious platitudes coming from the mouth of the Gentleman Saint. His life is filled with illustrations of how Francis de Sales practiced what he preached. In reflecting upon an offer he received to become a coadjutor to Cardinal de Retz in Paris, he wrote to Madame Angelique Arnauld:
“I am and shall be and ever want to be at the mercy of God’s divine providence. I want to hold no rank except that of a servant and a follower…I am again invited to go to Paris under advantageous conditions. I said that I would neither go there nor stay here unless to follow the will of God. This country (Savoy) is my home according to my natural birth; according to my spiritual birth, my home is the Church. I shall willingly go or stay wherever I can best serve the latter without attaching myself to the former.” (Ibid, p. 438)
In a Conference to the Sisters of the Visitation, Francis de Sales once quipped:
“While all the saints have saved their souls (by following God’s will) they have done so in very different ways…” (Conference XIX, p. 365)
All of us are called to follow the will of God, but no two of us are called to follow God’s will in exactly the same way. All of us are called to put ourselves as the disposal of God’s plans, and God’s plan may take each of us in a variety of different directions. Of course, the one constant in the midst of life’s twists and turns is the God whose will we try to accomplish!
Today, how might God ask us to follow His will?
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“Store up treasures in heaven…”
In his Introduction to the Devout Life (in a chapter entitled, “We must be Faithful to both Great and Little Tasks”), Francis de Sales wrote:
“The Sacred Spouse implies that He is pleased to accept the great deeds of devout persons, that their least and lowest deeds are also acceptable to Him, and that to serve Him as He wishes we must have great care to serve Him well in both great, lofty matters and in small, unimportant things. With love we can capture His heart by the one just as well as by the other…For a single cup of water God has promised to his faithful a sea of endless bliss. Since such opportunities present themselves from moment to moment it will be a great means of storing up vast spiritual riches if only you use them well.” (IDL, Part III, Chapter 35, pp. 213-214)
Do you want to store up treasures in heaven? Do good things for God – be they little or great – as often as you can on this earth.
Each and every day!
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“Do not worry about your life…”
In his Introduction to the Devout Life (in a chapter entitled, “We must be Faithful to both Great and Little Tasks”), Francis de Sales wrote:
“The Sacred Spouse implies that He is pleased to accept the great deeds of devout persons, that their least and lowest deeds are also acceptable to Him, and that to serve Him as He wishes we must have great care to serve Him well in both great, lofty matters and in small, unimportant things. With love we can capture His heart by the one just as well as by the other…For a single cup of water God has promised to his faithful a sea of endless bliss. Since such opportunities present themselves from moment to moment it will be a great means of storing up vast spiritual riches if only you use them well.” (IDL, Part III, Chapter 35, pp. 213-214)
Don’t worry about whether or not you are making great progress in the spiritual life. Don’t worry about not measuring up! Don’t worry about not being perfect! Just simply – with trust and confidence - do good things for God – be they little or great – as often as you can on this earth.
In the process you will slowly – but surely - store up treasures not only in heaven, but also right here, right now on this earth.