bearing blog: Introduction to the Devout Life: The self-help re-org AND desiring the right kinds of good things.

Last time I wrote about Introduction to the Devout Life, I arranged the chapters of part III, "The Practice of Virtue," more thematically.

Although I think Francis's approach is shockingly modern for the early 1600s, the way he has organized his information is not what we expect when we crack open a self-help book these days. Five hundred years later, if we want to reform ourselves, we are used to picking up a step-by-step guide. But there are two big problems with trying to read St. Francis straight through as if that's what he were writing.

First of all, we are going to be all over the place, attempting to focus on this virtue today and that virtue tomorrow and then back to the first virtue the day after next.

Second of all, Francis makes it quite clear that different people need to focus on particular virtues according to their state in life. So his general overview of the virtues could not possibly be a step-by-step guide for everyone.

Commenter Jeanie wrote:

Your posts are encouraging me to keep reading the book. In the past, I've always been overwhelmed by the changes every chapter seemed to require of me and would stop reading. Your idea that the book should be read first in its entirety to get an overview and thus discover that he doesn't mean to do it all at once is brilliant.

Yes, it seems to be working well, isn't it? I'm going to continue trying to organize and re-present what I am getting out of it, in an order that is easier for us woefully-used-to-self-help-books people to follow.

So, last time, I decided to group the following chapters of part three together as a sort of introductory collection:

•Ch 1-2 The choice of virtues
•Ch 37 Discernment of desires for things we should not have or cannot have; dealing with over-ambitious desire for virtues
•Ch 23 Mortification of the body
•Ch 24 Society and Solitude

I read over these chapters as a group, and here is what I think all five of them have in common, which is also why I think they belong in the "Read These First" pile:

Discernment.

All five of these chapters are guidelines that the reader ("Philothea") can use to discern which practices and virtues she should try to develop and in what degree she should develop them.

I wrote before that the first two chapters "The Choice of Virtues" and "Further Advice on Choice of Virtues" are about selecting the right virtues to practice in accord with your state of life, and understanding what virtues are and are not. Now let's look at the other chapters in my cobbled-together introduction.

Chapter 37, "Desires," is about desiring the right things, not the wrong things -- including the wrong spiritual goods. According to Francis, it is useless to desire what you ought not to have, or what you can't possibly have, or even what you can't have until far in the future. We need to examine even our apparently-GOOD desires, to determine whether these desires are really right for us, or whether they take the place of the desires we ought to have:

If I desire to buy something that belongs to my neighbor before he is ready to sell it, such a desire is merely a waste of time. If a sick priest desires to... carry on his work as usual, such desires are pointless, since at the time they cannot be realized; they merely take the place of those he should have, namely, to be patient, resigned, mortified, obedient and submissive in his sufferings, which is God's will for him at the time.

But often enough our desires are like those of a woman with child who wishes for cherries in the autumn and fresh grapes in the spring....

If I, as a bishop, desire the solitude of a Carthusian I am wasting my time and this desire takes the place of the desire I should have to carry out my present work properly.

I would not even wish anyone to desire greater talent or better judgement, for such desires are useless and take the place of the desire everyone should have to cultivate whatever talents he already possesses; instead of desiring new means of serving God, he should rather desire to make good use of those already at his disposal....

A soul once purified... has a great appetite for spiritual things, desiring, as one famished, countless practices of devotion, mortification, penance, humility, charity and prayer; such a good appetite, Philothea, is a good sign, but consider whether your digestion can cope with it all. You should rather choose with the help of your confessor such desires as can be put into practice here and now; when you have done that God will send you others which in their turn can be put into practice without wasting your time.

This does not mean that you should relinquish any of your good desires, but merely that you should put them into practice in due order, locking them away in some corner of your heart while you give your attention to those which can be made to bear fruit in the present moment. This applies both to spiritual things and to worldly things. To act otherwise is to live in a constant state of restlessness and anxiety.

How did you like the comparison to pregnancy cravings? Priceless, no?

This is a GREAT chapter to read before going on to read the rest of the chapters on particular virtues, because it reminds us to search out those virtues which it is actually in our power to develop in ourselves -- and to develop them, not all at once, but "in due order." Otherwise, we'll be anxious. Any of this stuff sound familiar?