Introduction to the Devout Life, 2-6 through 2-8: Getting specific.

St. Francis de Sales continues his beginner's advice on how to pray and meditate.

Just like the previous advice from part 2 that I blogged in the last post in this series, these instructions are useful to know before you start implementing the "novena" of ten meditations that appears in part 1.  I found myself turning back to part 1 to compare the words of the meditations themselves with the clarifications in this section that tell how to use them.

For example, the first eight meditations in part 1 contain "Spiritual Acts and Resolutions."  In section 2-6, Francis explains the spirit in which they should be made:  our emotional readiness to embrace the generalities of faith have to be turned into specific responses:

Meditation moves our will to make spiritual acts such as the love of God and our neighbor, desire of heaven and eternal glory, or zeal for the salvation of souls; it makes us long to be like our Lord, awakens a sense of compassion, wonder and joy, or fear of offending God  or of judgment and hell; it leads us to hate sin and have confidence in the goodness and mercy of God and to be ashamed of the sins of our past life.

We should make these spiritual acts as whole-heartedly as possible.  However, Philothea, you must not dwell upon them to such an extent that you forget to make practical resolutions according to your own special needs; for example, the first words of our Lord on the Cross will surely arouse in your soul a desire to forgive your enemies and to love them, but this is of little value unless it leads you to make a special resolution to that end, saying to yourself, "I resolve not to be annoyed any more by anything which so-and-so... may say to me, nor by any affront which some other person may offer me; on the contrary, I will say this or that to win him over," and so on.  In this way, Philothea, you will correct your faults in a very short time; but if you rely on your spiritual acts alone it will take you a very long time and be very difficult.

Isn't this timely!  Francis is telling us that we make our job much more difficult if we only desire to become changed:  we will achieve the devout life so much faster if we make a plan to change our habits, addressing each habit individually!  We grow faster if we attack specific tasks that we set before ourselves, or that we pray God to show us we should set before ourselves.

I went back to the ten meditations from part 1 to look for an example.  In the second meditation, "Why We Were Created," the third of the "Spiritual Acts and Resolutions" goes like this:

Turn to God.  My God and my Saviour, from now on I will think only of thee; no more of things which may displease thee.  My memories shall be ever of thy greatness and thy mercy so tenderly exercised on me.  My heart shall find all its delight in thee and thou shalt be the object of its love.  From now on I will detest the useless follies which have occupied my days and all the useless objects of my love, and accordingly amend my life.

Knowing Francis's advice about "practical resolutions," it is now easy to see how Francis intended these to be used.  Not merely reciting the words without thinking, but rather pausing at the words "...of thy greatness and thy mercy so tenderly exercised on me" to consider the specific ways that God's mercy has been manifest in my own life.  Stopping again at the words "the useless follies which have occupied my days" and the "useless objects of my love"  to call to mind those follies -- to call them by name, even -- and to disentangle my heart from any leftover longing for them. 

Francis goes on in 2-7 to explain how to conclude the prayers and gather the spiritual bouquet that he advises, and this part can also be used as a sort of handbook to guide you through the corresponding part in each meditation.

Then there's a very beautiful (and in my opinion, accurately rendered) bit in 2-8 I wanted to share:

When you have finished your meditation, take care to keep your heart undisturbed lest you spill the balm it has received:  in other words, keep silence as long as possible and transfer your attention to other things quietly, trying to retain the fruits of your prayer as long as you can. 

A man who carries a vessel full of some precious liquid walks very carefully, looking neither right nor left but straight ahead to avoid stumbling over a stone or making a false step, making sure that the vessel is well balanced. 

This is how you must act after prayer, trying not to be too quickly distracted; for example, should you meet someone you must speak to, accept this as unavoidable, but keep a guard on your heart, so that you spill as little of the balm of prayer as possible.

You must learn to pass from prayer to the duties of your state, no matter how far removed they seem from the thoughts you had in your prayer.  The lawyer must learn to pass from prayer to pleading a cause; the business man to commerce, the married woman to her housework, with such gentleness and tranquillity that the soul is not disturbed.

Since both prayer and the duties of our state our God's will, we should pass from one to the other with humility and devotion.

Way to go, St. Francis.  I love how he characterizes passing from one to the other as a skill that can be learned.  Doesn't he make it sound as if we really can learn to do this?  (And maybe if we can learn to pass from prayer to our duties, we can learn to pass from our duties to our prayer too...)

Comments

[Tabitha]

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