Learning to Live Serenely: The Wisdom of Francis de Sales
By Juliana Devoy RGS
Every day in the Eucharistic liturgy we pray the words "Protect us from all anxiety." The daily repetition of this invocation is not without meaning. We have only to open the newspaper or turn on the evening news to find plenty of material for angst. After 9/11 and its consequences, not only individuals but whole nations are experiencing increased anxiety. But it is not only the world scene that disturbs us. We witness divisions in the church, breakdowns of family life, loved ones' illnesses, financial reversals, and many other problems that threaten our peace of heart. Undue worry, anxiety, and agitation not only are detrimental to our psychological well-being, but also impede our spiritual growth.
A spiritual guide who can teach us serenity and Christian optimism no matter what happens in the world is St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622), bishop and doctor of the church, a man with a wonderfully balanced and integrated personality, who combined a deep spirituality with a penetrating insight into human psychology. Separated from him by a cultural, theological, and linguistic gulf of four centuries, we nevertheless find in his published works and in his letters of spiritual direction gems of wisdom which, if we take the trouble to extract them, will both counsel and console us on our spiritual journey. In this essay we will examine several points of Salesian spirituality that can aid us in gracious living and tranquillity of spirit.
Befriending Reality
In his Introduction to the Devout Life, Francis says that, aside from sin, anxiety is the greatest evil that can happen to us. "It proceeds," he says, "from an inordinate desire to be freed from a present evil or to acquire a hoped-for good. Yet there is nothing that tends more to increase evil and prevent enjoyment of good than to be disturbed and anxious."(1) In one of his colorful images, he likens anxiety to birds caught in a net: the more they flap their wings trying to escape, the more they become entangled. Francis knew well what he was talking about. As a nineteen-year-old student in Paris, he had undergone a spiritual crisis over predestination, asking himself whether it was possible for him to be separated from God for all eternity. The moral and spiritual anguish that he suffered was so great that he fell ill and could not sleep or eat. The crisis was resolved only when he abandoned himself unconditionally to God's love, praying for the grace to love God here and now if he could not love God in eternity.(2) Francis emerged from his personal "dark night" with two profound convictions about reality: his radical dependence on God and God's utter trustworthiness.
In the Salesian worldview, creation is suffused with God's goodness and our peace is found in conformity to God's will because God is a God for us. Our particular life circumstances are where we will find God. Francis, therefore, counsels a loving acceptance of the situation in which we find ourselves. His Introduction was written especially for lay people who desired to live in closer intimacy with God. Predating Vatican Council II by hundreds of years, he taught that every vocation is the locus for meeting God and that every Christian is called to a life of holiness. But the way to holiness would be different for everyone because the practice of devotion must "be adapted to the strength, activities, and duties of each particular person." A bishop is not called to live like a Carthusian, nor a skilled workman to spend his day in church like a religious. There is no need to emulate the lifestyle or the virtues proper to a vocation that is not one's own. His letters of direction illustrate this teaching in practice:
I should like you to consider how many saints, both men and women, have lived in the married state like you, and that they all accepted this vocation readily and gladly. We must love all that God loves, and he loves our vocation; so let us love it too and not waste our energy hankering after a different sort of life, but get on with our own job. Know that God wishes nothing else of you save what he sends at the moment, and do not be on the lookout for other things. . . . What is the use of building castles in Spain when you have to live in France? What a marvelous thing you said when you wrote to me: as long as I am serving God I don't care what kind of sauce he puts me in. . . . Come now, you know very well into what sauce he has put you, into what state of life and condition; and, tell me, is it all the same to you? (3)
But it would be a mistake to imagine that what is being advocated is a passive acceptance of the status quo. In his Treatise on the Love of God, Francis devotes a large section to "The Will of God."(4) He distinguishes between God's signified will and the will of God's good pleasure. Although obviously God has only one will, our discernment of what God wants of us will have to take account of two different sets of realities. In the first case we are guided by the commandments, the counsels, teachings of the church, and holy inspirations. When there is question of something clearly ordained by God, there is nothing to discern; we have only to obey. For choosing a vocation, however, or choosing one action rather than another, Francis counsels a great liberty of spirit since it is impossible to know God's will absolutely. In important matters we should pray, consult a spiritual director, and then do what we think is best. Even if doubts arise afterwards about whether we chose well, we should remain in peace and continue on the course we have chosen. In lesser matters we should "do freely what seems good to us, so as not to weary our minds, waste our time, and put ourselves in danger of disquiet, scruples, and superstition."
The "will of God's good pleasure" is God's will already done. It is the actual circumstances of our lives, the "sauce in which God has placed us," the events that take place and the things that exist outside our control. It is not that God causes everything that happens, but that "whatever is, is in some way within God's providence; it is not outside the loving embrace of the creative and redemptive process. God is found wherever one finds oneself." Wendy Wright, a Salesian scholar, has said that what is advocated is living "between the two wills, maintaining a creative tension that refuses to limit God to one expression or another." Loving submission to the "will of God's good pleasure" is, in modern terms, "allowing God to be God," surrendering to God the need to be in control, not only coming to terms with the way things are as opposed to the way we would like them to be, but actually embracing in love our particular reality because it flows from the loving hand of God. "We simply let ourselves," says Francis, "be carried by [God's] good pleasure, just as a little child is carried in its mother's arms by a certain kind of admirable consent, which may be called . . . the union of our will with God."
When it is God's good pleasure that we seek, we will experience peace of heart even in trials and difficulties. "Nothing can disturb us," De Sales writes to a correspondent, "but self-love and the importance we give ourselves." And, if we reflect carefully and examine why we are troubled and unduly agitated, we will discover that often it is because the ego is in control and trust in God's loving providence has taken a back seat.
Cherishing Our Humanity
An important part of our reality is who we are. Just as human maturity is built upon a healthy self-acceptance, so spiritual maturity requires us to love and accept ourselves. Envious comparison with others or disappointment that we fall short of our ideals causes sadness and discouragement. "Let us be what we are and be that well, in order to bring honor to the Master Craftsman whose handiwork we are," counsels Francis. And, in another place, "I have something to tell you, so remember it well: we are sometimes so busy being good angels that we neglect to be good men and women." The holiness that he himself embodied and that he proposed to those under his direction was a humanistic this-worldly holiness. He once wrote to Jane de Chantal, "I am as human as anyone could possibly be."5 And an eloquent testimony to the attractiveness of Francis's personality is given by St. Vincent de Paul, who declared, "I remember thinking again and again: how good you must be, my dear God, since Monsieur de Genève [Francis was bishop of Geneva], who is but your creature, is so wonderfully good and kind."
In striving to overcome our sinful tendencies and grow more like Christ, Francis recommends that we be gentle and patient with ourselves because our imperfections give us the opportunity to practice virtue: "Dear imperfections, they force us to acknowledge our misery, give us practice in humility, selflessness, patience, and watchfulness, yet, notwithstanding, God looks at the preparation of our heart and sees that it is perfect." Far from being surprised at our failings, we should take it for granted that we are going to fall often. As human beings we make what efforts we can with the help of God's grace, but we will never arrive at perfection in this life. "Alas, my dear daughter," he wrote to one under his direction, "you must forgive your heart; it has not fallen because it is unfaithful but because it is infirm. So you must correct it gently and peacefully and not make it any angrier or more upset."
Francis was firmly opposed to all affectation, all exaggeration, and all extremes. He said overeagerness is the mother imperfection of all imperfections. "This bustling eagerness," he wrote, "pretends to kindle us for our profit, but all it does is chill our fervor, only making us run so as to trip us up." A sense of proportion, the ability to smile at our own foibles, and an unbounded confidence in God are the best antidotes to the fears and anxieties that sap our energy and prevent us from opening out our whole being to the warming rays of merciful love.
Today we are so preoccupied with our psychological identity that we do not pay enough attention to our theological identity. Learning what number we are on the Enneagram or how we score on the Myers-Briggs aids our self-understanding. But deepening our theological identity allows us to live in the secure knowledge that we are children beloved by God, our tender mother. This truth is depicted by Francis in the following lovely metaphor:
My third rule is that you should be like a little child who, while it knows that its mother is holding its sleeve, walks boldly and runs all round without being distressed at a little fall or stumble. . . . In the same way, as long as you realize that God is holding on to you by your will and resolution to serve [her], go on boldly and do not be upset by your little setbacks and falls; there is no need to be put out provided you throw yourself into [her] arms from time to time and kiss [her] with the kiss of charity. Go on joyfully and with your heart as open and widely trustful as possible.(6)
Living Jesus
As a motto for the Visitation nuns and at the head of many of his writings, Francis set the phrase "Live Jesus!" Much more than an exclamation of praise, these two words contain a whole program of spirituality. The central focus of Salesian spirituality is Jesus Christ, the Son of God become human for us. The whole pedagogy of St. Francis de Sales in his books, his letters, and his conferences is directed toward allowing Jesus to take over our lives. "Live Jesus!" in the understanding of De Sales is "not simply to learn about Jesus or pray to Jesus or even imitate Jesus," but rather to surrender "the vital center of one's being-one's heart, as understood in the holistic biblical sense-to another living presence."
"Living Jesus," displacing the ego and making "another" our center, is the work of a lifetime. But we can begin wherever we are. Two methods are proposed to help us. The first is meditating on the life of Jesus in the Gospels and praying with our heart, "affective prayer," by which we grow in love of the Lord and gradually take on the mind and heart of Christ. The purifying process wrought by prayer in those who remain faithful is described in the famous analogies of the skilled musician who continues to play for the prince's pleasure even when his own deafness deprives him of the joy of listening to his own beautiful melodies, and of the statue who stays faithfully immobile in the niche in which the master has placed it, content to be where it is, knowing that it is there for the master's pleasure. The second method is the practice of what Francis terms the "little virtues." These are not the virtues which feed our importance or make us shine in the eyes of others, but the virtues that help us die to self: "patience, putting up with our neighbor, submission, humility, meekness of heart, affability, bearing with our own imperfections. . . ."
Christian serenity has little to do with temperament or with a carefree life. It is the fruit of a love that has won freedom through the hard discipline of self-renunciation. While external behaviors that help to promote serenity such as an unhurried manner, a quiet self-possessed demeanor, and a modulated tone of voice can be acquired with practice, true serenity of spirit comes from the depths of a surrendered heart and is a gift of God's grace that sheds peace on all those around us. A final image from the pen of our saint reminds us of what really matters and gives us a lens with which to view our lives:
Soon we shall be in eternity, and then we shall see how insignificant our worldly preoccupations were and how little it mattered whether some things got done or not; however, right now we rush about as if they were all-important. When we were little children, how eagerly we used to gather pieces of broken tile, little sticks, and mud with which to build houses and other tiny buildings, and, if someone knocked them over, how heartbroken we were and how we cried! But now we understand that these things really didn't amount to much. One day it will be like this for us in heaven when we shall see that some of the things we clung to on earth were only childish amusements.
I am not suggesting that we shouldn't care about these little games and trifling details of life, for God wants us to practice on them in this world; . . . but at the same time let's not take them too seriously . . . because when night falls and we have to go indoors -- I'm speaking of our death -- all those little houses will be useless; we shall have to go into our Father's house. Do faithfully all the things you have to do, but be aware that what matters most is your salvation.(7)
Notes
1. Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life, trans. and ed. John K. Ryan (New York: Catholic Book Company, 1952), pp. 251-252. Besides this one, other sources of material in this article are the following: Francis de Sales, Jane de Chantal: Letters of Direction, trans. Peronne Marie Thibert VHM and ed. Wendy M. Wright and Joseph F. Powers OSFS (New York: Paulist Press, 1988 - hereafter Thibert, Wright, Powers); St. Francis de Sales: Selected Letters, trans. Elizabeth Stopp (New York: Harper and Bros., 1960); St. Francis de Sales in His Letters, ed. Sisters of the Visitation (London: Sands and Co., 1933); Francis de Sales, On the Love of God, vols. 1 and 2, trans. John K. Ryan (New York: Doubleday Image Books, 1963).
2. Accounts of Francis's spiritual crisis are found in Michael de la Bedoyere, François de Sales (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1960), pp. 24-28, and in Thibert, Wright, Powers, pp. 19-21.
3. Stopp, p. 61; Sisters of the Visitation, p. 245; Stopp, p. 88.
4. See Francis, On the Love of God, vol. 2, Books 8 and 9.
5. Thibert, Wright, Powers, p. 38. This is how these authors translate "Je suis tant homme que rien plus," adding that this phrase "does not suggest a modest appraisal of his own human capabilities, but suggests rather that in his mind his very humanity was in fact the vessel which could contain the miracle of divine life." The statement has generally been translated "I am nothing if not a man." See de la Bedoyere, François, p. 6.
6.Stopp, pp. 45-46. I have taken the liberty to change the masculine pronoun to feminine in the quotation to be consistent with the image of God as mother.
7 Thibert, Wright, Powers, p. 159.
Reflection and Questions
Consider the advice of St. Francis de Sales:
"My soul is constantly in my hands, O Lord, yet I do not forget your law," said David often during the day or at least at morning and evening. See if you have your soul "in your hands" or if some passion or fit of anxiety has robbed you of it. Consider whether you have command over your heart or if it has slipped out of your hands and into some disorderly passion of love, hatred, envy, covetousness, fear, uneasiness, or joy. If it has gone astray, look for it before doing anything else and bring it quietly back into God's presence, subjecting all your affections and desires to the obedience and direction of his divine will. Just as men who are afraid of losing some valuable object hold it firmly in their hands, so also in imitation of this great king, we must always say, "O my God, my soul is in danger. Hence I always carry it in my hands, and in this way I have not forgotten your holy law."
Introduction to the Devout Life
Questions
1. What does it mean for us "to carry our soul in our hands"?
2. How do we try to maintain our peace in time of anxiety?
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(Tomado de Review for Religious 64.1 2005 )
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