Francis de Sales and the Introduction to the Devout Life

 

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Humility

 

External Humility

 

Borrow empty vessels, said Elisha to a poor widow, and pour oil into them (2 Kings 4:3-4).  To receive the grace of God into our hearts, we ought to empty them of our own glory.  The kestrel crying out and looking at birds of prey frightens them away by its characteristic secret power.  Because of it, the doves love it more than all other birds and live in security close to it.  In the same way, humility drives away Satan and preserves in us the graces and gifts of the Holy Spirit.  Therefore, all the Saints and especially the King of Saints and his Mother have always honoured and cherished this precious virtue more than any other moral virtue. [Continue ...]

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Interior Humility

 

You desire, Philothea, that I lead you further in humility.  For to do as I have already proposed is rather wisdom than humility; now I pass on further.  Many neither wish nor dare to think and reflect upon the graces God has given them personally, for fear of vain glory and self-complacency.  In this, they certainly deceive themselves. [Continue ...]

 

Humility, as an interior attitude to be cultivated, has fallen out of fashion in our contemporary society. We tend to be concerned to eradicate low self-esteem, cure depression, and help people feel good about themselves. We commonly equate the term "humility" with psychologically detrimental attitudes. But true religious humility is something other than this, although I think it is a tricky virtue to define. Religious humility involves a dual perception: first, of the immense potential of the human person made in the image and likeness of God, and second, of the very real limitations that keep us from realizing that potential. Humility is actualized in an awestruck surrender to the God-story that is so intimately woven into our own stories. We are children of God, intimates to divine life. How generously we are gifted. Yet in our efforts to realize our deepest nature we constantly find ourselves thwarted. We continue to stumble over ourselves both as individuals and community. Humility thus involves the two-pronged recognition of the gratuitous gift of life itself and our own inability to receive it joyously and fully.

 

My impression is that Francis de Sales understands humility, both external and internal, in a somewhat similar manner. But his era was not a highly psychologized one like ours. His approach, which is in keeping with longstanding traditional Christian interpretations, emphasizes the downward thrust of the trajectory of humility without much concern that such a thrust might, at some psychological juncture, become counterproductive. Today we realize that it might, in fact, erode or inhibit the sense of being a recipient of the astonishing gift of life.

 

What de Sales and other commentators before him seemed to assume was that people were intrinsically self-interested and self-willed, that their actions sprang from what we would perhaps term a solid ego base. Their "sin" then would be pride, overemphasizing the egocentric focus so that they would lose sight both of themselves as blessed recipients and as very fallible participants in a reality that is considerably larger than the boundaries of ego-identity.

 

What the discussion of humility in the Introduction overlooks, from a twentieth-century view, is the possibility that people do not always begin with stable ego-identities. Through family upbringing or life's experiences or the accidents of biology, we may find ourselves grasping and in need of a firm self-identity. To preach humility or the loss of self to someone without a healthy sense of self is not only futile; it is dangerous both to the individual and to his or her immediate companions. It may push her into a spiral of self-loathing or he may violently project his sense of worthlessness on his unfortunate family members or co-workers.

 

So what is important to remember about de Sales' treatment of the virtue of humility is that it is not self-loathing. Rather, it involves another realistic and sometimes painful recognition that we are essentially interdependent creatures, needful of God and the assistance of others. True humility takes a spacious bird's-eye view of ourselves and refuses to place ourselves at the center of creation. It also sees the self as one among many of God's children, both blessed and broken, nothing more or less than a small part of the vast and mysterious drama of divine life.

 

But to soar into that bird's-eye view we often, paradoxically, find ourselves forced to descend into a few valleys or at least walk for a long while on the level stretches of the plains. Francis uses the delightful metaphor of balm being poured into water.

 

For the Genevan bishop humility is closely linked to gratitude and trust, both attitudes essential to a deeply lived spiritual life. Both orient one away from undue self-concern and toward God, who is the source of all blessing and the final reservoir of love and strength when all else fails. To become both grateful and trusting of all experience, no matter how troubling it may be, is to root deep into the Christian God of love, who is revealed as being with us in all things, even death.

 

Francis ends his discourse on humility with a short and characteristic teaching. He teaches us to love our abjections.

 

Humility makes us love our own abjection

 

I proceed further, Philothea, and I advise you that in all circumstances and everywhere you must love your own abjection.  But you say to me: What does it mean: love your own abjection?  In Latin, abjection means humility and humility means abjection so that when Our Lady says in her sacred canticle, because he has regarded the humility of his servant, all generations shall call her blessed (Lk. 1:48), she means that Our Lord has graciously looked upon her abjection, littleness, and lowliness to heap upon her graces and favours. [Continue ...]

 

Francis' advice about loving one's own abjections can, at first reading, be profoundly disturbing. But, as I suggested in my brief introduction on "Reading the Spiritual Classics," this char­acteristically Salesian teaching has gone from being one of the mysterious cyphers in the text to one of my favorite teachings from de Sales' pen.

 

At first the phrase seems to conjure up a world- and body-denying ethos that would have humankind groveling in its own deprivation. Yet this perspective is difficult to reconcile with Francis' Christian humanist optimism. Gradually it is possible to discern what Francis means. The call is not simply to accept but to love our abjections. To love our abjections is to love ourselves as we are loved, in our wholeness. It is also to have compassion for ourselves. It is to see that the true place of transformation is not in our gifts but in our weaknesses. It is to know ourselves as wounded yet beloved and thus to know each other most truly. It Is not in our strengths that we find each other, but in our lack. For In our need we call each other forth. To love our abjections is to shatter the images of self-perfection we would like to project. It is thus to enter into the mystery of loving all that is human, and from there to begin to love all humans most truly.

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Poverty

 

Francis' exploration of the virtues also includes the traditional virtue of poverty. As one of the three evangelical counsels of perfection with chastity and obedience, poverty had long been a primary value in Christian spirituality. For centuries those considering a serious life of devotion to God in a monastic setting knew they would be expected to give up all private property. The religious value of poverty was also seen to extend beyond monastery walls. Excessive accumulation of wealth was generally understood to be antithetical to a conscientiously lived Christian life. Christendom consistently held up persons like Francis of Assisi as models of holiness. The saint from Assisi (who was favorite of his namesake from Annecy, Bishop de Sales) made poverty, both inner and outer, the central focus of his imitation of Christ. For him, to live in the spirit of Christ was to emulate the impoverished, crucified man who was stripped of all power, position, comfort, and support.

 

Four centuries later the Genevan bishop would still be turning the same virtue over and over, exploring its contours and making it come alive in the specific context of his readers' lives. His treatment of poverty has a unique cast to it, and although he does make the distinction between inner and outer poverty, for him the inner reality is primary.

 

The Poverty of spirit to be practised amidst riches

 

Happy are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of God (Mt. 5:3).  Accursed then are the rich in spirit for theirs is the misery of hell.  He is rich in spirit who has riches in his spirit or his spirit in riches.  He is poor in spirit who has neither riches in his spirit nor his spirit in riches.  The halcyons make their nests like the closed palm of the hand and leave only a small opening from the top. [Continue ...]

 

How to practise real poverty while remaining rich

 

The painter Parrhasius painted the people of Athens in a very ingenious way representing their different and changing moods: angry, unjust, fickle, courteous, mild, merciful, haughty, glorious, humble, audacious and timid, all these in one.  But, dear Philothea, I would like to put into your heart both riches and poverty together, a great care and a great indifference for temporal things. [Continue ...]

 

The specific audience to whom Francis de Sales was writing is no doubt obvious. He was writing for people who were ma­terially advantaged, for women like Madame de Charmoisy, an individual of social standing, wife of the ambassador of the Duke of Savoy. Francis himself was a nobleman of the house of Sales, well-educated and propertied (until he deeded his inheritance to his brother when he became a priest). His advice is thus directed to those in the upper echelon of society whose wealth was for the most part inherited.

 

While material poverty was held in high esteem in the tradition as a religious goal and while Francis himself as well as those who embraced the "perfect life" did indeed renounce all claims of private ownership, it was assumed that those of Francis' social status who lived "in the world" would in fact own a great deal. That there were imbalances and injustices in the way in which wealth was distributed in the society of his day is no doubt obvious to the modern observer. But when Francis' contemporaries asked the question, "How is the Christian to understand poverty and wealth?" they did not consider whether the hereditary ownership of vast reserves of property by a few persons or families was a Christian ethical issue. Rather, the status quo was taken for granted. If one was born into wealth, God must intend one to steward it responsibly. If one was born poor, God must Intend for one to bear it well. The same idea held about political institutions. The theory of the divine right of kingship still held sway in the European mind. The idea that political power should be shared by all citizens was not yet in the air. Francis was very much a citizen of his age in that he absorbed this perspective. Thus he could write about poverty of spirit in the midst of riches without raising the larger questions that have arisen in later centuries.

 

In our contemporary church context the scope of the questions about poverty and wealth has been radically enlarged. More than one hundred years have passed since the publication of the first papal encyclical on social justice. In the ensuing century the church has come to analyze in a new manner the question that the author of the Introduction addressed. What has emerged is the tradition of Catholic social teaching. In this tradition of social ethics sin is no longer perceived as only personal but structural as well. Persons, communities, and nations may construct and support social systems that promote the full dignity of every human person (the bottom line for the social teaching tradition) or they may not. It is fully within the purview of Christian morality to confront (through the use of nonviolent means) governments, policies, or practices that diminish the dignity of any person. Thus poverty, which effectively marginalizes an entire segment of the population from full participation in society, must be seen not as an inevitable state of affairs or as a given, but against the backdrop of the excessive and unbridled accumulation of wealth. Questions of distributive justice understood to emerge from the imperative of the gospel itself may be raised. The questions confronting the "very rich" today are wider in scope than in the seventeenth century. If one finds oneself with great wealth, in what does stewardship consist? Is dismantling economic structures that created such unbalanced distribution imperative? How do the need for personal security and the needs of the marginalized coincide? What does it mean to confront structural sin? Is poverty created, not by the choices of the poor, but by the economic system itself? The queries are endless, the responses varied and complex. The point is: the changes in both the socio-cultural and theological climates have been so marked in the past four hundred years that the bishop's specific advice must be weighed against new standards.

 

Similarly, the teaching in the Introduction on how to practice richness of spirit in real poverty must be reevaluated in light of the newly emergent Catholic social teaching tradition. In fact, this tradition is not "new" in the sense of being an invention of the modern era. Instead, it is a reawakening of the biblical perspective of justice. Through the eyes of the God of the Hebrew prophets, who cried out to divine justice on behalf of the widow and orphan, poverty is not God's will. It is the result of many human choices. Human beings create institutions and systems that impoverish and exploit. God's will, from this perspective, could only be to liberate and free people from the conditions that impoverish them.

 

Much of mainstream contemporary Christian social thought has run along these lines. However one might choose to evaluate these modern points of view, the fact is that de Sales' unhesi­tating affirmation that the poor are poor because God wills it li not shared by many contemporary people of faith. Thus his teaching that it is laudable to acquiesce cheerfully to the will of God in one's destitution might rightly be questioned today. Alternative responses of the poor have emerged in the twentieth century. Most notably the voices of the poor given a hearing in Latin American liberation theology would articulate the vision of a God (the God of the Exodus) who seeks to free those who are economically and politically enslaved. As God works in the world to effect this liberation through the people, suffering occurs. This is God's suffering. It is the crucifixion taking place today in the bodies of God's anawim, the insignificant ones.

 

Such a vision would never have entered Francis de Sales' field of consciousness. Yet we might well modify his advice here with the insights of contemporary believers.

 

How to practise richness of spirit in real poverty

 

If you are really poor, dearest Philothea, be such also in spirit.  Make a virtue of necessity and make use of this precious stone of poverty for what it is worth.  Its brilliance is not discovered in this world, nevertheless it is exceedingly beautiful and rich.  Have patience, you are in good company: our Lord, our Lady, the Apostles and so many men and women Saints have been poor.  Although capable of becoming rich, they despised it. [Continue ...]

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Friendship

 

In the third section of the Introduction to the Devout Life Francis de Sales placed an extended reflection on friendship. Alongside the virtues of humility, gentleness, and poverty he saw fit to include a discussion of the values and possible dangers of the love known as friendship. Francis distinguishes between types of friends. There are frivolous connections, based primarily on mutual flattery, and there are what Francis calls "evil" friendships, especially between men and women, which seem to be basically a prelude to seduction. But the bishop insists, and in this he goes against some tendencies in the tradition, that human relationships, when they are based on mutual love of God, are essential in the spiritual life. It is especially in the content of the communications between friends that the beauty and value of these "genuine friendships" are discerned.

 

For Francis friendship is a special type of love, and love, all love, comes from and returns to God. For him there is no intrinsic difference between the love of God and the love of neighbor. After all, he states, we do not have two hearts, one made for divine and one made for human love, but only one heart that is the seat of all our love. For the Genevan bishop as a Christian humanist, all human capacities are given for the express reason of praising and returning home to God. Love, with its intense dynamic of desire, is given to unite persons with the Creator from whom they come and to whom they return. Among the different types of love (a schema Francis derives from his reading of classical authors) the love of friendship is unique. It is the one type of love that must be mutual and equal. All love is not friendship for one can love without being loved in return (in the case of an unrequited love), and one can also love and be loved in quite different ways (as in the case of parent-child love). But a friendship implies a love that is both mutual (if the love is not present on both sides there is no friendship) and equal (there is comparable level of exchange and a sharing of perspectives). Friendship is also the most open-handed of the loves, a delicate dance that does not involve the conjoining of lives (as does marital love) but instead receives and gives love as gift.

 

Bishop de Sales particularly suggests the cultivation of spiritual friendships (i.e., relationships based on mutual love of God) to persons living outside of intentional religious communities. For all people need the support and encouragement of community to grow in love of God, and such support is often lacking in the lives of lay people (both in the seventeenth and twentieth centuries). Francis continued to develop his ideas on love and friendship beyond the Introduction. Indeed, love became the central theme of his next great book, the Treatise on the Love of God. Moreover, his own voluminous correspondence testifies to the fact that he sought out and cultivated a variety of spiritual friendships that were deeply influential in his own development as well as the religious development of many of his contemporaries. That he nurtured such relationships and wrote so probingly about their contours remains one of his greatest contributions to the literature of the Christian spiritual heritage.

 

Genuine friendships

 

Philothea, love everyone with a great love of charity but have friendship with those capable of communicating virtuous things to you.  The more exquisite the virtue you put in your exchange the more perfect will your friendship be. [Continue ...]

 

The Introduction that Francis de Sales perused that day in Annecy in 1610 contained two more lengthy parts entitled respectively, "Counsels Required for Overcoming the More Common Temptations" and "Exercises and Counsels to Renew and Confirm Oneself in Devotion." Both were designed as useful reference points for the person seeking to live out the "election" or choice of the devout life. Advice on how to deal courageously with anxiety, sadness, spiritual boredom, and such was followed by a set of exercises designed to renew and deepen one's original intention to pursue the life of devotion. Among these exercises is the "Examination of Conscience," a practice that Francis himself learned from his Jesuit mentors and that is an integral part of the Ignatian Exercises. De Sales elaborated on the Ignatian model and divided the examination into several discrete and focused parts concerned with examining one's progress in the devout life, one's state with regard to God, self, and neighbor, and one's inclinations. Included here is merely the brief examination of one's state with regard to one's neighbor.

 

The habitual practice of such an examination, in all its facets, weathers the test of time. However, the recommended focus in such a reflection today (Francis recommends doing it at the end of the day, even while in bed, or while walking) is not upon one's sinfulness or failure to progress in devotion, love of God, self, and neighbor, but upon one's general consciousness. Thus to become aware of the presence of God by rummaging back through the contents of one's experiences and feelings during the previous day, week, month, or year is a fruitful exercise. Contemporary renderings of Ignatian spirituality emphasize gratitude for the gifts of life — encounters with friends, small insights into self and God, moments of grace. They tend to concentrate on meeting God where we are, as we are, rather than meeting God in the yawning gap between where we are and where we think God would like us to be. They also admit of an openness to a variety of feelings, both positive and negative, and seek to wholistically integrate these feelings into the spiritual life by making them part of prayer and thus available for healing. This contemporary approach highlights in newly meaningful ways the Ignatian and, by extension, the Salesian spiritual "style" — finding God in all things, in all ways.

 

What the examination of conscience, in either its modern or historical forms, seeks to do is to make devotion a living reality, to integrate a person's love of God with the whole of his or her life's experiences, in a word, to incarnate that love.

 

Examination of one’s state with regard to one’s neighbour

 

The love for one’s husband or wife should be tender and peaceful, firm and continuous.  It must hold the first place since this is God’s plan and will.  I say the same of the love of one’s children, close relatives and friends, each in its place. [Continue ...]

 

The exercise of the examination of conscience or the practice at looking at one's own experience to discern there the presence of God is complemented in the Introduction's fifth part by another exercise entitled "Five Reflections for Renewal." This quintet of prayerful ruminations looks at devotion not from the human side "up" but from the divine side "down." Reflections on the excellence of the soul, the virtues, the examples of the saints, the love of Jesus and God for us take an alternate perspective on the enterprise of devotion. The reality of the overarching presence of divine love is affirmed by recalling the stories of faith and the people (the saints) who embraced that living reality so intently. Central to these reflections is the reflection on Jesus' love for humankind. Francis uses all his rhetorical skill in bringing that love to consciousness. His use of the image of the woman preparing the cradle as a metaphor for Jesus readying the spiritual cradle for each devout soul is delightfully typical.

 

Fourth Reflection: Jesus love for us

 

Be conscious of the love with which Jesus Christ, our Lord suffered so much in this world, especially in the Garden of Olives and on the Mount Calvary.  You were the object of this love.  By means of all these sufferings, he obtained from God the Father good resolutions and decisions for your heart.  By the same means he obtained also all that you need to observe, nurture, strengthen and carry out these resolutions. [Continue ...]

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