Spirituality of SFS: A Way of Life

As appearance, dress and hair in our efforts at becoming better Christians. But he does assure us that if Jesus lives I n our hearts, then “he will soon live in all your conduct and he will be revealed by your eyes, mouth, hands and, yes, even by the hair on your head” (Introduction to the Devout Life, Part 3, chapter 23). Was he thinking here of Mary Magdalene for whom he had great admiration? Once her heart was won over by Jesus, she untied her hair, which had no doubt helped her to attract many men, and she used it to dry Jesus’ feet. When one’s heart is changed, one’s whole life is too. One no longer sees people and things in the same light, and no longer speaks in the same way, or does things in the usual manner. Love is revealed in the eyes, the mouth, the hands, and the hair!

Francis de Sales desires that there be consistency between our interior and our exterior, convinced as he is that this will permit us to experience a profound unity in the depth of our being. This consistency takes place when we proceed from the heart out to life, as well as when we allow life to enter our hearts. In every life, both human and Christian, there is one constant movement from interior to exterior and from exterior to interior. We must maintain this reciprocal movement.

In speaking to the Visitandine Sisters, Francis reminded them that, in comparison to other religious Orders, they had “very few regulations regarding the exterior, few austerities, few ceremonies and few offices.” For this reason he encouraged them “to willingly and lovingly tune their hearts to them, allowing the exterior to be born from the interior, and the interior to be nourished by the exterior; fro in this way the fire produces ashes and the ashes in turn nourish the fire” (Spiritual Conferences, 1).

The heart must first be inflamed so as to give life and meaning to our actions. At the same time, our actions and activities rekindle the flame and sustain the fire which has been placed in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.

By all this we can understand that our actions cannot be separated from our contemplation, nor our deeds from the spirit that animates them, because love is their common source. And “just as we learn to study by studying, to play by playing, to dance by dancing… so also we learn to love God and neighbour by loving them.” We must never separate will from act, nor the desire for holiness from those deeds which place us on its way.

The only way for the Visitandine Sisters to acquire the spirit of their Order is to do what their Constitutions call for. The only way for Christians to acquire the spirit of the Gospel is to set about living it. “The spirit of the Rule is only acquired by the faithful practice of the Rule. I tell you it’s the same with holy humility and gentleness, the foundation of this Congregation: God will infallibly give them to you provided you are courageous enough to do all in your power to attain them” (Spiritual Conferences).

Francis teaches an incarnate Christianity, if we may so speak, for there is absolutely no Christianity without the Incarnation. In fidelity to the spirit of the Incarnation, he always speaks to real people who are living in very concrete situations. His approach is never simply theoretical. His books, letters, sermons and conferences are addressed to individuals, groups, or communities in search of light, counsel, help, or discernment. Thus he takes seriously the concrete situation in which these people and groups find themselves. The Christian faith and the journey toward holiness are in fact experienced in a vast variety of conditions relative to health, time, place and calling.

Enfleshed spirits

We human beings are simultaneously both spiritual and corporal; we are enfleshed spirits. For this reason, in his advice about our spiritual journey, Francis takes into account such things as health, work, rest, sleep, food. In his particular advice to his readers or his hearers, he points out the linkage between faith and life, spirit and body.

For example, he mentions something very basic that we can all verify: “We are very vulnerable to temptation both when our bodies are too pampered and when they are too exhausted.” He is really suggesting “good balance” here. Wouldn’t the better thing be to have a way of living our spiritual lives that is “balanced and in keeping with the duties and tasks which our state in life calls for?”

He makes another observation which makes good sense, and he gives appropriate advice relative to it. “Generally speaking, it is better to maintain our bodily strength even more than is absolutely necessary rather than to overtax it. We can always reduce it more when we wish, but we cannot always restore its strength at will… A steady, moderate, balance is preferable to periods of extreme abstinence, followed by periods of over-indulgence” (Introduction to the Devout Life, Part 3, chapter 23).

In a very beautiful chapter in his Treatise on the Love of God entitled, “The Incomparable Love of Our Lady, Mother of God”, Francis clearly establishes the bond between Jesus, the Incarnate Son of God, and the Christian’s human condition. Earlier in the book, beginning with the example of Mary, he shows how sleep and rest form a part of God’s will for us; they can be true acts of charity which move us along on our journey towards holiness.

Of Mary he writes that she “never slept except out of love, since she rested her precious body only to reinvigorate it so that it could better serve her God afterwards; this is certainly an excellent act of charity. Because, as the great Saint Augustine puts it, ‘Charity obliges us to love our bodies in an appropriate manner,’ in as much as they are required for our good works, are part of who we are as persons, and will share in eternal happiness.” His conclusions flows beautifully: “Certainly we Christians must love our bodies as living images of God’s incarnate Son, as having issued with him from the same stock and, consequently, belonging to him in parentage and blood” (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 3, Chapter 8).

Depending on whom he was addressing, Francis insisted either on the need to take care of oneself, or on the need, not to yield to the sort of life. Two examples will suffice here to illustrate the good balance of his advice.

Angelique Arnauld, the abbess of Port-Royal, was for a time under Francis’ spiritual direction. Eager to reform her monastery and return it to the purity of its primitive Rule, she gave herself over to harsh austerities. Playing on the name of the abbey, Port Royal, Francis helps her to see that love has the primacy: “Do not burden yourself with too many vigils and austerities (and believe me, I know well what I am saying here), but go to the Royal Port of the religious life by the royal road of love of God and neighbour, of humility and gentleness” (June, 1619).

This letter must not have been successful in moderating her desires for three months later he wrote her again: “Sleep well, since you will get back to six hours of sleep, since that is what you want. To eat little, work hard, have many concerns on our mind, and then to refuse to let our body sleep is to try to get a great deal of work out of a poor, emaciated horse without letting him graze” (letter of September 12, 1619).

Celse-Benigne was Jane de Chantal’s son. In 1610 he was a young man of fifteen, healthy and full of plans, ready to leave for the French court at Paris. In contrast to Angelique Arnauld, he was at risk of being tempted by an easy and worldly life. Francis desired for him “a vigorous heart so as never to indulge your body with delicacies, with too much sleep, and with similar things. For a truly generous heart always has a bit of disdain for such bodily delicacies and pleasures” (Letter of December 8, 1610).

Setting and Environment

All of us live in some particular place. We live on one of the continents, in a particular country and region, and with a particular geographical, economic, social, political, and religious situation which affects our daily life. The Christian faith is the same everywhere, but the manner of understanding the Gospel, of living and transmitting it, varies according to whether we live in a rural or industrial setting; whether we are apart of the middle class or the third world; whether we find ourselves in a mainly Christian country or in a Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, or atheistic one; whether ours is a democratic country or under the domination of a strong or dictatorial regime. Depending on our belonging to one or other of these places and environments, our response to the universal call to holiness will take on different nuances.

Francis de Sales did not speak in the same way to the people of Annecy as to those of Paris, Lyons, or Rome; or to city dwellers in the same manner as to those who lived in villages. The message was the same, but all persons were invited to live it where they were, because we “must work the field where we are” and not send “our oxen and plough to our neighbour’s field; otherwise we’ll have no harvest of our own this year. Such behaviour is a waste of time. Because if “our thoughts and hopes are elsewhere, we will not be able to live fully where we are” (Letter to Jane de Chantal, August 6, 1606, AE XIII, 207).

It is thus a question of each of us living our faith fully where we are, without dreaming about being in some other place. Those places are often more beautiful in our imagination than they actually are in fact; even if they are more beautiful and more pleasant than where we are, they are not where God has called us to, at this time. “I am quite adamant about my advice not to sow in our neighbour’s field, no matter how beautiful it may be, when our own needs sowing. It is always dangerous to have our heart in one place and our responsibility in another” (Letter of November 30, 1605, AE XIII, 123).

The richness of participating in the Church derives precisely from the variety of ways in which the one faith is lived in different countries and environments. “Grow and flourish where you are planted!” If each one of us were to live that advice to the best of our ability, the Church would become “a garden dappled with unlimited flowers. It is necessary that they be of various sizes, colours, fragrances and, in short, of different perfections. Each has its value, charm and shade of colour; the coming together of such variety results in a very perfect and deeply satisfying beauty” (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 2, Chapter 7).

The Era and Time in which we live

Obviously we don’t speak and write in the same way today as they did at the end of the 16^th and the beginning of the 17^th century. Francis is well aware of the necessity to preach and live the Gospel in one’s own time. In the preface to the Treatise on the Love of God, he writes: “Certainly I have taken into consideration the spirit of our time; I had to. It is very important to be aware of the age in which one writes.”

He thus encourages us to know our time and to love it. He never tarries in the past nor project himself into some dreamy future. He lives the present moment. He asks his readers and those who hear him to live the present day, because today is the only moment of our encounter with God. It is this particular age that God asks us to live in. We can in no way change yesterday. As for tomorrow, the best way for us and others, to prepare for it, is to live today well. Francis is in agreement with St. Augustine who asked his contemporaries not to complain about their age because “we are our age; let us be good and our age will be good.”

Unique to our age is the shrinkage in distances and rapid communication. Given these factors, the world has become a village in which people of other continents have become neighbours. Such an age invites us to openness and solidarity – and this is not in opposition to what was said earlier about our sowing and labouring where we are. We are still called to live where we are but in a greater solidarity with others because of our awareness of the interdependence of peoples and nations.

The media have contributed in a major way to this new awareness. From now on they will play a considerable role in the lives of individuals and of whole peoples. Francis de Sales would rejoice in all the possibilities offered by modern technology. He knew how “find a language marvellously appropriate” for carrying the Gospel to his contemporaries. To use Pope John Paul II’s expression, he was “a man of communication” (October 7, 1986, Annecy).

He encourages us to communicate with one another.

Each person’s particular vocation

Francis de Sales teaches that all are called to holiness, but he knows that we are not all to proceed in the same way. John Paul II summed it up well in his homily on the shore of Lake Annecy on October 7, 1986: “He (Francis) proposed to us the full Gospel demand, and he taught its access to everybody: to men and women, laity and religious, young and old, married and celibate, rich and poor, the learned as well as the ignorant, princes and peasants, soldiers and merchants… To all he gave the call to holiness, but according to each one’s condition and dispositions” (D.C. no. 1927, p. 996).

These words are an echo of Francis’ constant teaching. “Devotion must be experienced in different ways by the gentleman, the worker, the servant, the prince, the widow, the young girl, and the married woman. Not only that, but its practice must be adapted to the strength, activities and duties of each individual person” (Introduction to the Devout Life, Part 1, Chapter 3).

It would in fact be a mistake to ask parents raising children to practise the same type of poverty as practised by hermits and monks, or to ask people who work all day, to get up during the night to pray. The means must be adapted toe ach person’s condition.

This is the great lesson which Francis wants to inculcate in us: let each of us be happy in our own vocation and respond in it to God’s love. “It is necessary to stay in the boat in which we find ourselves on our voyage from this life to the other, and to remain there willingly and lovingly” (Letter of April 7, 1617).

One phrase sums up well Francis’ thought on the subject of each person’s vocation. It is found in a letter to Madame Brulart (June 10, 1605). “Let us be what we are, and be that well, so as to honour the Master worker whose handiwork we are.”

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All these elements – the body, place, time, vocation – make up our “state”. This state carries with it certain exigencies and responsibilities; these are the duties of our state in life, our “duties of state.” By means of these exigencies and responsibilities God leads each of us to holiness in imitation of Christ, his Incarnate Son.

“The Lord Jesus, divine teacher and model of all perfection, preached holiness of life, of which he is both the author and maker, to each and every one of his disciples without distinction: ‘You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect’ (Mt. 5:48; Lumen Gentium, 40).