(An index of all posts on St. Francis de Sales' work Introduction to the Devout Life is here. A post outlining part 4 of the book is here.)
In our last look at Introduction to the Devout Life, St. Francis de Sales showed that anxiety's chief danger is that it can lead to a destructive sadness which I think we can even call depression. He treats this sadness or remorse in the next chapter, 4-12.
As usual, in what follows, I have broken up paragraphs and modified punctuation a bit to improve blogginess.
"Supernatural remorse," says St. Paul, "leads to an abiding and salutary change of heart, whereas the world's remorse leads to death" (2 Cor 7:10). Sadness, then, may be good or evil, depending on its effect, though it produces many more evil effects than good....
...[T]here are only two [good effects]:
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- compassion
- repentance
...[I]t produces six bad effects:
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- anxiety
- discouragement
- anger
- jealousy
- envy
- impatience
Here is a perfect example of why St. Francis appeals to me so much: he makes lists.
We should be suspicious of sadness that interrupts our objectively virtuous activities:
The devil takes advantage of sadness to tempt the good, striving to make them sorrowful in their virtue as he strives to make the wicked rejoice in their sins, and as he can only tempt us to evil by making it appear attractive, so he can only tempt us away from what is good by making it appear unattractive. He delights to see us sad and despondent because he is such himself for all eternity and wishes everyone to be as he is.
And that reminds me, another reason why we should strive to be cheerful and not morose about our Christian life is that we have a responsibility not to make it more unattractive to others. Who would want to take on a life that makes everybody complain all the time? At the same time, we need to seek support and give support by being honest about our frustrations and struggles. (Cf. the post about lactational amenorrhea a few days ago) Can we be honest and struggling and cheerful at the same time? Some discernment is necessary for this, for sure. Clearly this is one of the reasons why God gave us a sense of humor.
Here are Francis's diagnostic criteria for "evil sadness:"
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- disturbs the soul
- leads to disquiet and inordinate fear
- breeds distaste for prayer
- clouds the mind
- undermines our judgment, resolution, and courage
- saps our energy
- robs our soul of consolation
- leaves our soul powerless and almost paralysed
I guess if none of that is happening to you, you might have the good kind of sadness.
If such sadness should come upon you... make use of the following remedies:
Pray. "Is one of you unhappy?" says St. James, "let him fall to prayer" (James 5:13) make use of aspirations, either vocal or interior, which tend to confidence and love, for example: "O God so merciful and good!" "My loving Saviour!" "God of my heart, my joy and hope!" ... and so on.
Stand firm. Resist any tendency to sadness most vigorously and do not falter because your efforts seem to be made half-heartedly and without fervour, for the devil will cease to trouble you when he sees that instead of being wearied by sadness you continue your good works and gain all the more merit as a result.
Sing. Sing spiritual canticles... Remember how David, by singing psalms, drove away the evil spirit which so oppressed Saul.
[K]eep yourself occupied with exterior works as varied as possible, to divert your mind from the cause of your sadness, to purify your heart and increase your fervour; for sadness makes us lukewarm.
Express your devotion outwardly even though without sensible fervour; for example, embrace the crucifix, clasp it to your breast; kiss our Lord's hands and feet; raise your hands to heaven in supplication; make ... acts of love and confidence...
Voluntary physical suffering merits spiritual consolation, while the soul is diverted from its interior sufferings by these exterior ones....
Holy Communion is an excellent remedy...
[Make your sadness] known humbly and sincerely to your confessor...
[S]pend as much time as possible in the company of spiritual persons...
Finally, resign yourself into God's hands and strive to bear patiently the sadness which troubles you... confident that, having tested you, God will deliver you from this trial.
Well, that's quite a lot of advice.
I confess that at this point, I see a pattern. Although Francis does suggest some specific remedies for specific problems ... Rather obviously, Francis suggests prayer, confession, and Holy Communion as remedies for basically everything that can go wrong with the devout life.
It's not so much that this surprises me as it strikes me as a little inefficient -- maybe Chapter Four should have had a general bit of advice at the beginning along the lines of "No matter what, try prayer, confession, and Communion first."
I'm beginning to think that prayer, confession, and Holy Communion -- heck, you may as well just go to Mass! get them all taken care of at once! -- is kind of the equivalent of "turn the blasted thing off and turn it on again. See if that fixes it."
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