Monastic Musings

“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; abide in my love… If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love… I have said these things so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. This is my Commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, than to lay down his life for his friends.” (Jn.15: 9-13)

Jesus’ passion and death is the true school of love. Francis de Sales ends his Treatise on the Love of God writing of its power and importance to our own eternal destiny: “Now, in conclusion, the Death and Passion of our Lord is the sweetest and most compelling motivation that could possibly animate our hearts in this mortal life: and it is the truth that mystic bees make their most excellent honey in the wounds of this Lion of the tribe of Judah, his throat slit and torn to pieces on the mount of Calvary; and the children of the Cross are glorified in their wonderful problem, that the world does not understand: from death, comes the substance of our consolation; and from death, stronger than all, comes forth the sweetness of the honey of our love.” (TLG BK XIII; XIII) Living each day well demands a life of self-sacrifice and discipline and love. Jesus died on the Cross to open the gates of heaven to us, but they are narrow gates. To be judged worthy of heaven, we must love. Faith opens many doors, but it is up to each one to pass through them. Francis continues: “You must choose, O mortal one, in this mortal life, either love eternal, or death eternal; the ordinance of the Great God allows not for any compromise.” (TLG BK XII: XIII)

Heaven. Resurrection. Ecstasy. Glory. All are possible for all. But the choice remains ours. Pope Saint John Paul II, looking forward to the new millennium and his program for Church renewal in his encyclical, Novo Millennio Ineunte, wrote:

“As on Good Friday and Holy Saturday, the Church pauses in contemplation of his bleeding face, which conceals the life of God and offers salvation to the world. But her contemplation of Christ’s face cannot stop at the image of the Crucified One. He is the Risen One!… Two thousand years after these events, the Church relives them as if they had happened today. Gazing on the face of Christ, the Bride contemplates her treasure and her joy… Heartened by this experience, the Church today sets out once more on her journey, in order to proclaim Christ to the world… ‘He is the same yesterday and today and forever.‘ (Heb. 13:8)” (NMI #28) And what was Pope Saint John Paul II’s program? Holiness. Schools of Prayer. The Spirituality of Communion. The Path of the Gospel. “…until the heart truly falls in love.” (NMI #33)

And this is exactly the same program Saint Francis de Sales pointed out. Falling in love with God. This is what he wrote about in the Treatise. This is what he wrote about in the Introduction to the Devout Life. The long journey to holiness. This is what he preached, lived, and died for. This is his Easter message:

LIVE JESUS! I love Jesus! Live Jesus whom I love! I love Jesus, who lives and reigns from age to age! Amen.

HAPPY EASTER!

“Do not weep.”

“You are now filled with sorrow; but I will see you again …and your heart will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.” 

“In contemplating Christ’s face, we confront the most paradoxical aspect  of  his mystery, as it emerges in his last hour, on the cross.” So writes Pope St. John Paul II in his encyclical, Novo Millennio Ineute. He continues, “We shall never exhaust the depths of this mystery. All the harshness of the paradox can be heard in Jesus’ seemingly desperate cry of pain on the cross: ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ (Mk. 15:34) Is it possible to imagine a greater agony, a more impenetrable darkness?” (NMI #25) In gazing at his sorrowful face, John Paul II invites us to probe further into the mystery: “Jesus’ cry on the cross, dear brothers and sisters, is not the cry of anguish of a man without hope, but the prayer of the Son who offers his life to the Father in love, for the salvation of all.” (NMI #26)

As we gaze at the face of the dying Savior we see, beneath the thorn-crowned head and disheveled hair, his expression of unfathomable sorrow; the drops of blood pooled and dried in the creases of his pallid skin; his bruised cheek, his cracked lips, his parched tongue; the yellowish spittle trapped in his beard… For over two millennia, souls have looked into this face of sorrow to find the meaning of suffering and death, to trace a path of trust in the Father’s divine ordinances, and to receive consolation in their own agony.

The reality and inevitability of suffering and death, for those we love and for ourselves, are not subjects that we often choose to ponder, but as we enter into Holy Week, it might be well to look into the mirror of Christ’s Holy Face and see there, not only the depths of his suffering, but also the depths of his trust in the Father’s goodness and of his love. Once again, we turn to Francis de Sales. Christ’s crucifixion and death were the center of his earthly existence and the hope of his future glory. Francis, with holiness of insight, optimism of faith, and common sense, dares to guide our more timid spirits into realities we might prefer to avoid.

The young Francis was not immune from the fear of death. As a seventeen year old student in Paris, he worried about the possibility of being predestined to damnation – he was, in fact, in a state of clinical depression. Yet in his darkness, he turned for answers to his Crucified Lord, and wrote, “Oh Love, Oh Charity, Oh Beauty… am I never, then, to enjoy Thy delights? …But did not my sweet Jesus die for me, as well as for the rest? Ah, be it as it may, Lord, if I cannot love Thee in the next life, since no one praises Thee in hell, may I at least profit by all the moments of my short existence here to love Thee!” (Robert Ornsby, Life of St. Francis de Sales, p.6) As always, Francis had recourse to prayer, and it happened that after a heartfelt and desperate recitation of one Memorare, he was cured.

Several years later, as a university law student, Francis again came face-to-face with death. “Whilst at Padua, he was attacked by a violent fever, which brought him to the brink of the grave…” his biographer relates. However, in this instance, Francis displayed a now heroic acceptance of an early death. “When asked by his tutor what were his wishes with regard to his funeral, he replied that he had only one request to make, which was, that his body might be given to the medical students for dissection.” (Ornsby, LSFS, p.16) If he was never to be useful to the world by using his knowledge and talents, at least his cadaver could serve some useful purpose. Throughout his illness and in imitation of his Savior, he would only say, “Thy will be done.” Miraculously, he recovered.

If Francis was resigned to his own death, it was not without emotion that he embraced the death of those dear to him. When his youngest sister, Jeanne, died at the age of fourteen after a brief, but fatal illness, Bishop Francis wrote to the Baroness Jane de Chantal, who had been caring for her, “Alas! My daughter, I am nothing other than human; my heart has been touched more than I had ever thought to be possible …But as for the rest – blessed be Jesus! I will always take the part of Divine Providence: it does all and disposes of all for the best …in the midst of my heart of flesh, which has felt this death so deeply, I am very sensible of a certain sweetness, tranquility, and restfulness of mind in the thought of Divine Providence, which produces throughout my soul a great consolation in the midst of its grief.” In this same letter, Francis continues to give evidence of the firm foundation of his faith in Divine Providence as he advises her, “No, my dear daughter! We must not only agree that God should strike us, but also that he should do so wherever it may please him: we must leave the choice to God, for it belongs to him.” Here we might say, like the apostles, “this is a hard saying“; yet Francis, like his Lord and Master, does not back down: “Oh Lord Jesus! Without reserve, without if, without but, without exception, without limitation, may thy will be done upon father, mother, daughter, in all and throughout all. Ah! I do not say that we must not desire and pray for their preservation: but to say to God – leave this and take that – is a thing we must never say.” (Letter, 11/1/1607)

We see Francis most stricken on February 25, 1610, when he received word that his mother had suffered a stroke. Francis, now the Bishop of Geneva, raced to the family castle on horseback, accompanied by a physician and an apothecary, to be at her side. She could not see, but she recognized his voice, and felt for his hand to greet him as her bishop. Thereupon, as Reverend Harold Burton writes in his The Life of St. Francis de Sales, she embraced him, “putting her arm around his neck, she drew his head down towards her and gave him her mother’s kiss upon his lips. ‘This one’, she said, ‘this one is both my son and my father.’ ” After keeping vigil at her side for two days, she died. “Francis closed the eyes of his beloved mother with his own hands, blessed her and kissed her for the last time, and then gave free course to his tears.” (Burton, LSFS, pp. 503,504) On this occasion, he once more wrote to his friend, the Baroness de Chantal, attesting to both his peaceful grief at the loss of his saintly mother and his entire resignation to God’s will. Madame de Chantal herself had just experienced a tragic loss in the death of her youngest daughter, Charlotte. Francis alludes to her suffering in this same letter: “Our poor little Charlotte is happy, indeed, to have quitted the earth before really coming in contact with it. And yet, alas! We cannot but weep over her somewhat, for is not our heart a human heart and our nature one that feels?” (Burton, LSFS, p .504) Francis does not deny sadness in times of bereavement, but sees everything through the eyes of eternity, and in this is his consolation and peace.

When Jean Deage, his faithful tutor, died on June 8, 1610 – just two days prior to the foundation of the Visitation Order – Francis was once again overcome by grief. While he was saying a requiem mass for the repose of the soul of this cranky, exacting, and loyal friend, Francis was struck speechless as he came to the Pater Noster. After he had regained his composure and finished saying the prayer, he still could not restrain his tears. Later on, he explained to his chaplain that it was only as he began the Our Father that he suddenly remembered that it was Monseigneur Deage who had first taught it to him in his childhood. (Burton, LSFS, p. 507)

Francis had a heart of flesh. He loved his sister, his mother, his tutor, but – and this was the source of his peace – he loved them all in God and for God, and he loved God above all of them. God is always good. This faith penetrated to the marrow of Francis’ bones, or rather, to the center of his heart. God only wants good for us. God did not create death. Death came through sin. But Jesus, by his suffering and death, vanquished sin. By means of dying on the Cross out of love for us, death is put to death. (Rom. 5-6) And so, as we contemplate the face of the Crucified One with the eyes of faith, we see not only death, but life and resurrection. The Agony and the Ecstasy.

This is why Jesus could tell the widow of Naim, “Do not weep.” (Lk. 7:13) He approached the funeral litter carrying her only son, touched the litter, and spoke this word: “Young man, I bid you, get up.” The grieving woman no longer had a reason to cry because the God who made the universe had just raised her son back to life. This is also why Jesus could tell his apostles at the Last Supper on the eve of his Passion, “You are now in pain, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice and no one will take away your joy.” (Jn. 16:22) Not only will Jesus from the dead three days after his crucifixion, but the apostles, too, will not be overcome by death.

Once we believe – that we were created by a God who loves us, saved by a God who loves us, and destined by him for eternal happiness – we, too, can be brave. We can weep and then dry our tears. We can pray for those we love to be healed. We can call the doctor and the pharmacist and the priest. We can stay by their bedside, and if death should come, we can weep and pray.

As for our own death, in his sermon of March 10, 1622, Francis tells us, “we must, then, fear death and not fear death,” and that, “we must fear it with a fear that is both tranquil and full of hope, since God has left us so many means to die well. Among others He has left us that of contrition, which is so general (that is perfect contrition) that it can erase the guilt of all kinds of sin.” We can fear death and not fear death by living each day well, as if it were our last; and in this way, we can prepare for death. In this same sermon, Francis tells a little story to show us how. He tells us that a Police Inspector was sent by the King of Spain to investigate the conduct of all the police of a particular province. All of them were on the take, except one. His long record of service was impeccable. When he was asked how he could have maintained such a spotless record amid so much corruption, the policeman simply told the inspector that he always knew that someday, one day, he would come – and so he lived each and every day as if it were the day of the investigation. This was his secret. “As our life is, so will be our death. So, to sum up this point, let us say that the general rule for a good death is to lead a good life. It is true that even while living well you will fear death, but your fear will be holy and tranquil, relying on the merits of our Lord’s Passion, without which death would certainly be dreadful and terrifying.” Live each day well. This was Francis’ secret. It could be ours.

“Can the prey be taken from the mighty, or the captives of a tyrant be rescued? But says the Lord: ‘Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken, and the prey of the tyrant be rescued; for I will contend with those who contend with you, and I will save your children.’” (Isaiah 49: 24, 25)

On January 6, 2001, Pope Saint John Paul II promulgated his encyclical Novo Millennio Ineunte in which he wrote, “We do not know what the new millennium has in store for us, but we are certain that it is safe in the hands of Christ, the ‘King of kings and Lord of lords.'” (NMI #35) Nine months later, on September 11, 2001, the World Trade Center in New York City collapsed.

How are we to ransom these captives: the prey of terrorists, the unborn child, those who are victims of abuse or addictions, those taken captive by the tyranny of relativism – our children? At the dawn of the new millennium, fully aware of the dangers of the “culture of death”, Pope Saint John Paul II called Christians of the world to their knees: “Yes, dear brothers and sisters, our Christian communities must become genuine ‘schools’ of prayer, where the meeting with Christ is expressed not just in imploring help, but also in thanksgiving, praise, adoration, contemplation. listening and ardent devotion until the heart truly ‘falls in love’.” (NMI #33) “God… invites us to invest all our resources of intelligence and energy in serving the cause of the Kingdom. But it is fatal to forget that ‘without Christ we can do nothing.’ (cf. Jn. 15: 5)” (NMI #38)

Robert Cardinal Sarah echoes the clarion call of John Paul II in his deeply insightful reflections in his book, The Power of Silence, when he states: “Christ alone can give man the strength to confront evil and come to terms with it… ‘Apart from me you can do nothing.’ (Jn. 15:5) By the strength of his Cross, he has the power to save mankind…” (#282) “Confronted with evil, man gets organized by gathering the means necessary for his defense… his greatest defense is humble faith and profound prayer.” (#286)

On our knees, in the depths of relationship with Christ, in a “genuine dialogue of love” – this is the beginning, the middle and the end of the battle for our children’s souls. Yet, the pope says, “we well know that prayer cannot be taken for granted. We have to learn to pray, as it were learning this art ever anew from the lips of the Divine Master himself...” (NMI #32) To help us learn this art, we have another saint, from a former time and another place: Saint Francis de Sales.

At the turn of the seventeenth century, Francis de Sales not only used all his resources of intelligence and energy in serving the cause of the Kingdom as a young missionary priest in the Chablais, but also, as Bishop of Geneva, he completed the homework assignment Pope Saint John Paul II gave us for the dawn of the twenty-first century, by making his entire diocese a school of prayer. He handed in his “homework” four centuries early by weaving the fabric of prayer into every aspect of his episcopacy: into his own daily routine of liturgy, sacramental life, and meditation – including the recitation of the complete rosary; by reforming monasteries that had become lax; by establishing the Oratory of Our Lady of Compassion at Thonon as a trade school and seminary; by founding the Florimontaine Academy and the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine in Annecy; by writing thousands of letters of spiritual direction to individuals who wished to become devout Christians; by authoring the spiritual classics, Introduction to the Devout Life and Treatise on the Love of God; and finally, by co-founding with Saint Jane de Chantal, monasteries of the Visitation of Holy Mary, to “give to God daughters of prayer“.

St. Francis tells us that in prayer we occupy ourselves with God in love, great faith, and trust. In prayer we remember that God’s heart is very large and generous and ours is only very small, yet as we draw near to him and his heart, a bonding takes place. In Book VII, Chapter I of his Treatise on the Love of God, Francis, who was the eldest son of a large family, uses the metaphor of a nursing baby to describe this relationship of bonding. How often and attentively he must have regarded his young mother’s attentions to his new baby brothers and sisters! He saw the infant, pressed to his mother’s breast, nursing with delight, seeking to cuddle ever closer to this world that was his mother: a world of warmth, of affection and, of survival. This is Francis’ elusive yet effective image of prayer. In prayer, we desire to unite ever closer to the source of our being and, in turn, God presses us ever closer to his heart.

In the Introduction to the Devout Life, addressed primarily to lay people, Francis takes his students step-by-step through the various kinds and degrees of prayer. He does not want them to get lost along the way in daydreams or discouragement. Always he emphasizes that our prayer must enhance our charity, our sense of duty, and our desire to please God and not ourselves. Here it is that he defines and explains how to say vocal prayers and meditate and contemplate… But Lent is fast approaching and we may not have the leisure to study long at his school. Still, we have captives to ransom and preys to rescue – so we turn to St. Francis to help us.

Not only is Lent coming, but with Lent comes fasting. Jesus told us that some kind of demons are cast out only by prayer and fasting. So let us listen to a word of Francis on this subject. In his sermon for Ash Wednesday, February 9, 1622, St. Francis preaches: “Fasting fortifies the spirit, mortifies the flesh and its sensuality and raises the spirit to God… it disposes the heart to seek to please God alone and with great purity of heart.” He then asks us to fast wholeheartedly, but unostentatiously -just for God. This kind of fasting helps us to pray well. In his book, The Power of Silence, Robert Cardinal Sarah explains, “Asceticism is a means that helps us to remove from our life anything that weighs it down, on other words, whatever hampers our spiritual life, and therefore, is an obstacle to prayer.” (#268) Francis gives us the details: “…not only must we make the bodily senses fast, but also the soul’s powers and passions – yes, even the understanding, the memory, and the will… In short, we ought to hold in check all those things which keep us from loving or tending to the Sovereign Good. In this way interior fasting accompanies exterior fasting.” We have to ask ourselves, what am I willing to give up outside myself, or to silence within myself, in order to make this Lent a time of prayer? To quietly do battle to save an innocent life or to restore innocence to one who has lost it along the way?

Do we believe in miracles? We are praying for moral miracles. Do we have the faith to expect them? In his Lenten sermon of February 17, 1622, Francis de Sales gives us an example found in the Gospel story of the Syrophoenician woman, who, upon hearing that Jesus is staying in her neighborhood, encounters Jesus and intercedes for her little daughter who is possessed by an impure spirit. In his homily, Francis tells us her secrets of success. This Gentile woman, who knows very little of prayer, knows how to love; and out of love comes her lively faith and ardent prayer. Having heard of Jesus’ power, she boldly crosses the threshold of the home where Jesus is staying; and, disregarding Jewish observances, throws herself at his feet and begs him to cast out the demon from her child. Instead of casting out the demon, he tosses her an insult: “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” Undaunted, she catches the slight, humbles herself the more, and tosses back an alternative as she begs to be, if not a child of the Covenant, at least its little pet puppy. “Sir,” she counters, “even the little dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” (Mk. 7: 24 -30) At this remark, Jesus is won over, concedes the match, throws in the towel, and immediately casts out the child’s demon.

St. Francis points out four virtues that accompany this woman’s simple prayer: trust, perseverance, patience, and humility. “What great trust!” he marvels. “She believes that if the Lord has pity on her, her daughter will be cured. She doubts neither his power nor his will, for she cries out only, ‘Have pity on me!’ …Certainly the greatest defect that we have in our prayers… is our lack of trust.”

As for perseverance, Francis notes: “We grow weary of praying… The Canaanite woman did not act in this way. For although she saw that our Lord was paying no attention to her prayer, since He gave her no word of response and seemed in this to do her an injustice, nevertheless, this woman persevered in crying out after him… Let us persevere in prayer at all times. For if our Lord seems not to hear us, it is not because He wants to refuse us. Rather, his purpose is to compel us to cry out louder and to make us more conscious of the greatness of his mercy.“

Next is patience. “When this woman heard our Lord (who, we recall, had just referred to her as a dog) she did not lose patience at all. Neither was she offended nor saddened. Prostrating herself at his feet, she replied, ‘It’s true. I am a dog. I admit it. But I take you at your word, for the dogs follow their masters and feed on the crumbs that fall under their table.’

“This humility was the fourth virtue that accompanied the faith and prayer of the Canaanite woman – a humility so pleasing to the Savior that he granted her all that she asked of him… Certainly all virtues are very dear to God, but the virtue of humility pleases him above all the others, and it seems that he can refuse it nothing.” Instead of resisting the woman and her request, He now finds her irresistible. By becoming utterly pathetic, she arouses his pathos and elicits his mercy. Immediately, her daughter is released from her captivity.

Do we believe in miracles? Do we have the love, the trust, and the stamina to keep praying intensely even when no answer seems to come? Do we have the patience to wait for an answer to our prayers and the humility to accept God’s silence? Perhaps these forty days of Lent will not apparently ransom any captive or rescue any prey, yet we must believe our humble, silent cries will be heard and that his merciful love will provide the answer, in His time and in His way.