Salesian Literature

 

12.  The Passion of Our Lord and what it means

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Listen to this dear Saviour, who cries out that He is thirst­ing for our salvation, who awaits and invites us to it. "Come," He says to us, "if you wish; for if you do not come, you will not find salvation anywhere else." Why do some ask for a redemption other than that of the Cross? Is the Cross not sufficient? It is more than sufficient. A single tear, a single loving sigh from this Sacred Heart could have redeemed millions of thousands of sinful human and angelic natures. Nevertheless, He did not redeem us with just a single sigh, just a single tear, but with many, many labors and pains, with all His precious Blood outpoured. This Redemption is so plenteous [Ps. 129 (130):7] that it could never be ex­hausted, not only after millions of years, but even after mil­lions of millions of centuries. It was to perfect this Redemption that Our Lord chose not to descend from the Cross. As the great Apostle says, He was truly obedient, even unto the Cross, for He truly died the death of the Cross through a great obedience.

 

There are several kinds of obedience. They can all be un­derstood in two ways. The first is speculative, that of theologians when they declare and explain the excellence of this virtue. Thus some value it greatly; they read what is written about it with great relish. "Oh how happy are the obedient!" they say. They speak eruditely of the five degrees of obedience. Yet in all this they do no more than the theologians who dis­course about it so excellently. But to speak well about it is not enough. We must come to the second way of understand­ing this virtue, which is to practice it in the small and great occasions that present themselves. Some want to obey, but only on condition that no one asks anything difficult of them. Others want to obey provided no one contradicts them in their capriciousness. This person will submit to this one, but not to an­other. It takes little to assess the virtue of such persons: they obey in what they want, but not in what God wants.[15]

 

Now, such obedience is not pleasing to Our Lord. One must obey equally in great and little things, in easy and in difficult ones, and remain firm, that is, attached to the cross where obedience has placed us, without accepting or admit­ting any condition which tries to make us descend from it, no matter how fine it may appear. Therefore, if any inspira­tions or movements come to you that would withdraw you from obedience, reject them boldly and never follow them.[16]

 

Let married people remain on their cross of obedience, which is in marriage. It is the best and most practical cross for them and one of the most demanding, in that there is almost continual activity—and occasions for suffering are more frequent in this state than in any other. Do not desire, there­fore, to descend from this cross under any pretext whatever. Since God has placed you there, remain there always.

 

Let not the prelate or the priest desire to be detached from his cross because of the turmoil of a thousand cares and hindrances he encounters there. Let him attend to his duties of state, taking care of the souls that God has confided to him, instructing some, consoling others, sometimes speaking, some­times keeping silent, giving time to action and to prayer. This is the cross to which God has attached him. He must remain there firmly, without believing in anything that might induce him to leave it.

 

Let the religious remain constantly and faithfully nailed to the cross of his vocation, never permitting the least thought that might divert him or make him change the resolution he has made to serve God in this way of life, and still less even listening to what would lead him to do anything contrary to obedience. And do not say to me: "O God! if only I had my way, I would pray for hours and receive so many consola­tions that I might even experience being enraptured.[17] If I could only pray at this hour, I could easily wrest the very Heart of God and place it in my own, or soar up to the Cross and place my hand in the Saviour's side, taking away His Heart. If I could only pray now, I would pray so fer­vently that I would be raised right off the ground." All this is nothing but the appearance of virtue. We must reject all that is contrary to obedience, never permitting such move­ments and inspirations. Simply obey. God does not ask any­thing else of you.

 

Thus Our Lord in no way desired to descend from the Cross. He asks, "Do you want Me to descend from it? No! For all is finished." [Jn. 19:30]. This was the sixth word He pronounced: Consummatum est— All is finished." "O My Father, I have accomplished in every detail all that was Your will. Nothing more remains for Me to do. Behold the work of Redemption finished and perfected." [Jn. 17:4]. O God! these words provide material for an infinity of very useful reflections, but I have spoken of them to you before.

 

Let us come to His last word: Father, into Your hands I entrust My spirit. [Lk. 23:46]. Here again, many considera­tions present themselves. This word contains all Christian perfection. In this word is found Our Lord's perfect aban­donment into His Heavenly Father's hands, without any reserve whatever. "I entrust My spirit into Your hands." Note here His humility, His obedience, and His true submission. "While I lived, O Father, I gave You My body and My soul without reserve; now, having accomplished all that You asked of Me, nothing more remains but to entrust My spirit into Your hands."

 

Here is the quintessence of the spiritual life—this perfect abandonment into the hands of the heavenly Father and this perfect indifference in whatever is His divine will.[18] "All is accomplished, but if it would please You that My spirit should remain still longer in this body that it might suffer more, I entrust it into Your hands. If You wish Me to pass from this life and so to enter My glory, I entrust My spirit into Your hands. In short, O Father," our dear Master would say, "here I am entirely ready and resolved to do all that pleases You."

 

Ah! my dear Sisters, if when we consecrate ourselves to God's service we begin by absolutely and unreservedly en­trusting our spirit into His hands, how happy will we be! Any delay in our perfection comes from this lack of self-gift. Truly we must begin, pursue, and complete the spiritual life with this self-gift, in imitation of the Saviour, who did so with admirable perfection at the beginning, during the course, and at the end of His life.

 

On entering God's service many lay down conditions, say­ing: "I do entrust my spirit into Your hands, but with this reservation, that You nourish my heart with delights and con­soling feelings, and that I never suffer either aridity or dry-ness. I entrust into Your hands my spirit, but only on condition that no one thwarts my will; or only on condition that You give me a superior according to my heart, or according to my liking and inclination. I entrust into Your hands my spirit, but please provide that I am always dearly loved by those who direct me, by those into whose hands I deliver myself for love of You. Please make sure that they approve and value all I do—at least the greater part of it, for not to be loved and not to feel this love is intolerable."

 

Is it not clear to you that you are not entrusting your spirit into God's hands as Our Lord did? Certainly, it is in this that all our ills, our troubles, our disquietudes and other such nonsense originate. As soon as things do not happen as we had expected or as we had promised ourselves, desolation seizes us. We are not yet perfectly indifferent, totally surren­dered into the divine hands. Oh, how happy we would be if we thoroughly practiced this point. It is the abridgement and quintessence of the spiritual life! We would reach the high perfection of a St. Catherine of Siena, or a St. Francis, or a Blessed Angela of Foligno, or of many others who were like balls of wax in the hands of Our Lord and of their su­periors, receiving all the impressions given them.[19]

 

Therefore, my dear Sisters, act accordingly, and say in­differently in all things, with our dear Master: "Into Your hands, O my God, I entrust my spirit. Do You wish me to be in dryness or in consolation? Into Your hands I entrust my spirit. Do you wish me to be contradicted, to experience repugnances and difficulties, to be loved or not, to obey this one or that one, and in whatever it may be, in great things or small? Then into Your hands I entrust my spirit." Let those, therefore, who are engaged in the activities of the ac­tive life not desire to leave it in order to devote themselves to the contemplative until God so ordains it; and let contemplatives not give up contemplation until God commands it. Let us be silent when we should, and speak when the time for it comes. [Eccles. 3:7].

 

If we act thus, we will indeed be able to say at the hour of our death, as did our dear Master: "All is consummated, O God; in everything I have accomplished Your divine will. What remains now for me except to entrust my spirit into Your hands at the end of my life, just as I entrusted it to You at its beginning and during its course." But so that we might live this way, my dear Sisters, let us use the three hours of the darkness of this life as did our dear Saviour and Master. Let us remain on the cross where God has placed us; let us pray on it; indeed, let us complain to Him of our afflictions and aridities; and when appropriate, let us say words of consolation to our neighbor. Finally, let us be consumed on this cross and accomplish all that God wills, so that at the end we will receive from this great God—as I pray Him with all my heart, and for myself in particular—the grace to entrust our spirit into His hands. He will receive it as He did that of His dear and only Son, to make it rejoice in Heaven, where we will bless Him eternally for the glory that He won for us by His Death and Passion. May God indeed give us this grace! Amen.

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[1] Cf. Sermon for Palm Sunday; Treatise on the Love of God, Book 2, chapter 6.

[2] Cf. Sermon for Palm Sunday.

[3] Cf. Sermon for Passion Sunday; Treatise, Book 7, chapter 8.

[4] Cf. Treatise, Book 6, chapter 14.

[5] Here St. Francis de Sales is making use of the ancient patristic teaching on the communicatio idiomata. In the Incarnation we recognize the union, in the Person of the Logos, of both the divine and human natures. Thus, the properties or characteristics of either divinity or humanity can be predicated of the divine Person who is the subject of the Incarnation. In this way, even though it is only characteristic of humanity to die, death can nevertheless be predicated of the one God-man in light of the hypostatic union. Since Jesus is a divine Person, we can truly say that God suffered and died. The patristic tradition, and here St. Francis de Sales, made use of this doctrine to show the loving involvement of God, through the Incarnation, in our human predicament of suffering and dying. God, Love Itself, is not aloof or indifferent to our human suffering and dying; He is there with us in Jesus.

[6] Cf. Treatise, Book 9, chapter 13.

[7] Our Lady was an exception.

[8] Here, as in countless other instances, St. Francis de Sales will use something borrowed from Pliny's Natural History. It was an endless source for many of the images he used to clarify some article of faith or spiritual principle. St. Francis knew well that much of what Pliny wrote was simply no longer tenable according to the view of natural science in his day.  Still, it served his purposes well.

[9] Cf. Treatise, Book 5, chapter 8.

[10] Cf. Sermon for Thursday of Second Week.

[11] Theologians use the distinction between sufficient and efficacious grace to help explain how God's universal salvific will (God "will have all men to be saved. . ."—1 Tim. 2:24) is reconciled with the fact that some apparently are not saved. St. Francis was very familiar with that issue and even contributed to the solution of the De Auxiliis controversy, but he chose not to deal with theological subtleties during a Good Friday sermon.

[12] Cf. Sermon for Thursday of the Third Week.

[13] Cf. Sermon for Thursday of the Fourth Week.

[14] St. Francis de Sales is here alluding to the teaching of the Reformation on the mediatorial function of Jesus alone: Jesus, and only He, can intercede on behalf of the human family before God; one does not need to use saints for this purpose. The Catholic teaching sees the intercession of the saints in terms of Jesus' identity with His people (i.e., the Body of Christ), and of the People of God's share in Jesus' priestly office. Their intercessory role is joined with His mediatorial role and derives all its efficacy from it.

[15] Cf. Sermons on Our Lady, "The Purification," February 2, 1622; and "The Presentation of Our Lady," November 21, 1620.

[16] Cf. Treatise, Book 8, chapter 13; Spiritual Conferences, X, "Obedience"; XI, "Virtue of Obedience."

[17] Cf. Sermons on Our Lady, "The Purification," February 2, 1622.

[18] Cf. Treatise, Book 9, chapter 4.

[19] Cf. Treatise, Book 9, chapter 4; Spiritual Conferences, XII, "Simplicity.”

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