Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message
St. Francis de Sales
January 24, 2018
In the Roman Catholic and Church of England’s calendars,
today is the feast day of Francis de Sales, who served as Roman Catholic Bishop
in Geneva (1602-22). He was one of the
greatest preachers against Calvinism in his age, and came to his anti-Calvinism
honestly: as a young man, he had heard a
Calvinist preach pre-destination and damnation, and was so troubled by it that
he became bedridden for months. He
returned to the Catholicism of his youth in a visit to a parish church in Paris
where, before the famed “Black Madonna” (a statue of our Lady of Good
Deliverance) he became convinced that God is Love and desires the salvation of
all (God’s universal salvific will). He
took vows as a lay monastic, and later became a priest. One of the people he helped with his message
of God’s love was Jane Frances de Chantal, a wealthy widowed mother of four who
was broken-hearted at the hardness of her life.
His Lenten sermon on the Love of God gave her new life and resolve, and
soon she had founded, under Francis’s spiritual direction, the women’s religious
order the Congregation of the Visitation.
Francis’ Introduction to the Devout Life gives a taste of
the joy underlying his approach to Christianity:
“The world ridicules devotion in life, caricaturing devout people as peevish, gloomy, and sullen, and insinuating that religion makes a person melancholy and unsociable. But the Holy Spirit, speaking through the mouths of the saints, and indeed through our Savior himself, assures us that a devout life is wholesome, pleasant, and happy. The world observes how devout people fast, pray, and suffer reproach; how they nurse the sick, give alms to the poor, restrain their temper and do similar deeds which in themselves and viewed in isolation are hard and painful. But the world fails to discern the interior devotion which renders these actions agreeable, sweet, and pleasant. Look at the bees: they suck the bitter juice from thyme and convert it into honey because that is their nature. Devout souls, it is true, do experience bitterness in works of self-discipline, but they are engaged in a process that converts such bitterness into a delicious sweetness. Sour green fruits are sweetened by sugar, bringing a ripeness to what had been unwholesome to the palate. In the same way, true devotion is a spiritual sugar which takes away the bitterness of self-discipline. It counteracts the poor person’s discontent and the rich person’s smugness; the loneliness of the oppressed and the conceit of the successful; the sadness of the one who lives alone and the dissipation of the one who is at the center of society. In a word its gift is an equanimity and balance which refreshes the soul. In the creation God had commanded the plants to bring forth fruit, each according to its kind. Similarly, he commands all Christians… to bring forth fruits of devotion according to each person’s ability and capabilities… True devotion, however, harms no one; on the contrary, it brings a person to wholeness. If our devotional life is not compatible with our lawful vocation then it is manifestly false.… True devotion ...not only does no harm to our vocation and employment, it adorns and beautifies them.”
Grace and peace. Fr.
Tony+
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