bearing blog: Introduction to the Devout Life 1-9 through 1-18: A novena for conversion to the devout life and detachment from sin.

The last time I wrote about St. Francis de Sales's work of spiritual guidance, Introduction to the Devout Life, I outlined the structure of Part 1 as a sort of three-step program for the renunciation of attachment to sin and other things that get in the way. Step one involved a series of meditations, which I want to write about in more detail today.

St. Francis de Sales doesn't use the word "novena" in the chapters containing his ten meditations, but this little series of prayers definitely qualifies as one. For starters, he advises his reader to use one meditation per day. Also, although a novena is traditionally nine days of prayer, the last two go together in a particular way, as you'll see.

The series of meditations comes in a very particular order. The first eight are meditations on truths of our relationship to God:

1. Our creation by him
2. Why we were created
3. All the benefits God has given us
4. Our sins, especially the sin of ingratitude to God
5. The reality of our own death
6. The reality of final judgment
7. The possibility of hell and of losing God forever
8. The possibility of reaching heaven and knowing God forever

The first eight meditations all follow a very similar four-part pattern: preparation; "considerations" of imagery, experiences, and truths related to the day's meditation; spiritual acts and resolutions; and conclusion, ending with the advice to "gather a spiritual bouquet" of the thoughts that have come to you.

For example, here is the whole of the first day's meditation:

CHAPTER IX. FIRST MEDITATION.  Of Creation.

  Preparation.

PLACE yourself in the Presence of God.

Ask Him to inspire your heart.

Considerations.

Consider that but a few years since you were not born into the,world, and your soul was as yet non-existent. Where wert thou then, O my soul? the world was already old, and yet of thee there was no sign.

  God brought you out of this nothingness, in order to make you what  you are, not because He had any need of you, but solely out of His  Goodness.

   Consider the being which God has given you; for it is the foremost being of this visible world, adapted to live eternally, and to be perfectly united to God's Divine Majesty.

Affections [Spiritual Acts, in my other translation] and Resolutions.

Humble yourself utterly before God, saying with the Psalmist, O Lord, I am nothing in respect of Thee--what am I, that Thou shouldst remember me? O my soul, thou wert yet lost in that abyss of nothingness, if God had not called thee forth, and what of thee in such a case?

Give God thanks. O Great and Good Creator, what do I not owe Thee, Who didst take me from out that nothingness, by Thy Mercy to make me what I am? How can I ever do enough worthily to praise Thy Holy Name, and render due thanks to Thy Goodness?

Confess your own shame. But alas, O my Creator, so far from uniting myself to Thee by a loving service, I have rebelled against Thee through my unruly affections, departing from Thee, and giving myself up to sin, and ignoring Thy Goodness, as though Thou hadst not created me.

Prostrate thyself before God. O my soul, know that the Lord He is  thy God, it is He that hath made thee, and not thou thyself. O God, I am the work of Thy Hands; henceforth I will not seek to rest in myself, who am nought. Wherein hast thou to glory, who art but dust and ashes?  how canst thou, a very nothing, exalt thyself? In order to my own  humiliation, I will do such and such a thing,--I will endure such contempt:--I will alter my ways and henceforth follow my Creator, and realise that I am honoured by His calling me to the being He has given; I will employ it solely to obey His Will, by means of the teaching He  has given me, of which I will inquire more through my spiritual Father.

  Conclusion.

  Thank God. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and praise His Holy Name with all thy being, because His Goodness called me forth from nothingness, and His Mercy created me.

  Offer. O my God, I offer Thee with all my heart the being Thou hast given me, I dedicate and consecrate it to Thee.

  Pray. O God, strengthen me in these affections and resolutions. Dear  Lord, I commend me, and all those I love, to Thy neverfailing Mercy.

   OUR FATHER, etc.

At the end of your meditation linger a while, and gather, so to say, a little spiritual bouquet from the thoughts you have dwelt upon, the sweet perfume whereof may refresh you through the day.

The pattern is changed with the ninth and tenth meditations. Like the first eight, these begin with preparation and with consideration of imagery. But then these meditations conclude with an "election:" a decision is reached and a choice is made.

9. Choice of Heaven (decision to seek heaven -- as an end)
10. Choice of the Devout Life (decision to seek a devout life -- the means)

I like the way Francis first guides his reader through the decision and resolution to seek heaven -- the end, so to speak -- and then, once this resolve is firm, guides his reader through the decision to seek a devout life, which is the means by which the end can be attained.

He's very well-organized! I can't believe how... modern the writing is, not so much in the wording of the meditations themselves, but in the way the whole thing is structured. Through all this I continue to be astonished at the freshness of the advice, written in the first years after 1600.

In the next installment I'll start blogging about part 2, "Prayer and the Sacraments."