SALESIAN LITERATURE

Table of Contents

PART I

I. TO LOVE OR TO DIE

• Love Alone

• Man

• The World

• Eternal Life

II. THOU HAS MADE US FOR THEE, O GOD!

• God’s Love for Us

• Grace

• Desire and Will

• The Love of God

• The Love of Neighbour

PART II

I.BEGINNINGS AND ENDS

• Perfection

• Self-love

• Confession and Sorrow for Sin

• Lift up Your Hearts

• How to die Well

II. BE ON YOUR GUARD!

• The Spiritual Combat

• Fear

• Presumption

• Rash Judgements

III. MAN’S TRUE CALLING

• Vocation

• Marriage

• The Care of Souls

• The Religious Life

• Friendship

PART III

I. THE LITTLE VIRTUES

• Simplicity

• Humility

• Patience

• Obedience

• Gentleness

• Fidelity

II. EQUILIBRE SURNATUREL

• Spiritual Training

• Liberty of Spirit

• Little by Little

• Dying to Self

• Brother Ass

• Misery of Mind and Body

• The Poor in Spirit

III. PRAYER

• Recollection of the Mind

• Recollection of the Heart

• Distractions

• Spiritual dryness

• Perseverance

IV. LIVING WITH OUR NEIGHBOUR

• On Conduct

• On Reputation

• On Speaking

V. THE GREAT VIRTUES

• Resignation

• Devotion

• Holy Indifference

Introduction

The beginning of the seventeenth century found France, in fact all of Europe, unnerved by the Wars of the League; a great majority of the faithful were driven to despair by two spiritual evils. There had been so much suffering that many men and women readily believed that God took no interest in human affairs. How obvious the setting was for the cold philosophy of Montaigne! Others wandered into a spiritual wasteland with the conviction that the life of devotion was impossible for those whose work brought them into contact with the world of human commerce. For them there was only one solution-the penitent, cloistered, monastic life.

It was in this dry atmosphere that the fresh and warm teachings of St. François de Sales found a receptive and grateful audience. In many ways he was the anti-type of Calvin of the preceding century. He was far less constrained, more rounded, more alive. Even in picturing him we do not envisage him wearing a stiff, conventional collar to keep the head straight, permitting no grace of movement. He was led to God not by fear, but by love. Nor did he plunge into the distant past to find God. For St. Francis, God is Emanuel-God with us-always present with us in His Universal Church. Moreover, if this saint answers the cold theory which ends in turning the back on God through fear of Him, he also answers that other reactionary trend which culminates in the presumption of exaggerated quietism. Never does he seek to destroy the will; he asks for an utter abandonment of the will to God, and such abandonment requires a most subtle act of the will.

Seeds of devotion were sown by St. François in a hundred different ways. With one person it would be no more than a brief counsel, but one never to be forgotten. With another it would be a verbal aperitif that marked the starting point for a more meaningful way of life. He took souls just where he found them in the midst of their ordinary occupations. With the help of ever-present grace, which transforms without changing, he elevated nature without altering it. Whatever could be turned to the service of God he permitted to bud and blossom, pruning, guiding and correcting when obviously necessary. In other words, he brought Christianity into every aspect of life by making the intention of pleasing God the centre of man's actions. Indeed, it would be a short-sighted spirituality which did not bless the monastic life, and no one blessed it more than St. François de Sales. But he also taught people to believe that there was nothing to prevent them from seeing the beauty of God in every true vocation. Little by little the obstacles in the way of devotion became smaller for the layman as well as for the religious.

Read St. Francis and you feel that human nature is known, supported and uplifted; the affectionate side of man's nature, his passions and psychological longings are understood in terms of their roots. Here is a knowledge acquired by a priest who directed souls, by a bishop who truly shepherded his flock; here is a deep understanding which sprang from a holy man's affection for those whom he longed to make whole. Nothing is more piercing than affection. If we love, we will know. And this helps to explain why the Saint placed so much emphasis on friendship as a vital support to man's true calling. It explains why he regarded the obedience we render to our neighbour, to our employer, to our doctor, as an important little virtue. It also explains why he believed the intellect must always be brought into play, for the will must be sharpened by clarity.

St. Francis does not address us en masse; he speaks to us as so many persons. We recognise ourselves in what is said because he speaks about things of which each of us has had experience. Somehow devotion is made more interesting than the affairs of the world. He does not start us off with anything very exciting, such as ecstasies or the experiential union with God about which most mystics speak. He begins with the little practical virtues of simplicity, humility, gentleness, fidelity….. Is not this just where a beginning should be made? 'Opportunities,' he writes to a friend, "seldom present themselves for the practice of great and heroic virtues, but each day presents us with thousand occasions for practising little virtues with a heroic spirit." If St. Francis does not always convince our intellects, he does touch our hearts and plants in them a wish to believe and love. And when a man wishes something to be true he comes very close to finding it true.

He teaches love, and only love; a person who truly loves will sooner or late be loved in return. But love must be tranquil; eagerness even about doing good is suspect. "Even our faults," he says "should be tranquilly despised." This is the kind of maxim the Jansenists as well as many of our present-day puritans and penitents fail to grasp. Should we act like the lion that was annoyed by the fly, or should we cultivate that patience which tries to see our faults and learn the lesson of humility which they are meant to teach? Here is a plumb bob that must be cast upward, not downward; for unless our hope is established in God's loving-kindness it is false hope. It is not on our own goodness that we must rely, but on God because He is Goodness itself.

Is this easy devotion? Some accuse St. Francis of leading people to heaven in a luxury liner. But would they say this if they really knew anything about spiritual matters? Does he ever encourage one to risk the shattering of the fortress of grace in the storm of worldly life? It is one thing to be an honnête homme in the world; it is quite another to perform every action for the love of God. But the St. Peter in us will not have it so; he always wants to do more. And if St. Francis tries to calm down that side of our nature, it is because he never forgets what happened to St. Peter. If he distrusts the zeal we manifest to day it is because he knows that it may too easily turn into aridity tomorrow, and lead us into that discouragement which is a total absence of love.

Most people, however, when they meet the wise and charming Francis in his writings, are unwilling to let him go. But much as one might like to carry his Treatise on the Love of God or a volume of his Letters to and from one’s daily duties, these books are much too large and bulky for the average pocket. Hence this little collection of maxims and sayings gathered from those many pages of spiritual counselling. They are words of advice which every friend of Saint Francis has always been fond of repeating - words which serve as props of encouragement, points for meditation, counsels, exhortations, reminders.

With this in mind, the author has arranged these maxims in what he believe are convenient sections. However, the person who chooses to carry them about with him will soon discover that they can be properly digested only by taking them slowly and one at a time. He will also discover that he will want to add the books from which these maxims are gathered to his devotional shelf, for Saint Francis speaks as much to our twentieth-century conditions as he did to the conditions of his own spiritual family.

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