For other posts in this series about St. Francis de Sales's most well-known work, follow this link to the index, also available in the right sidebar. I outlined the structure of part five here.
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We've been looking at Part Five of Introduction to the Devout Life, which is about the annual review and renewal of devotion.
If Part Four is a sort of "troubleshooting guide," then Part Five is a preventative maintenance manual. Francis recommends doing this review at the time of the celebration of the Baptism of the Lord (January 9 this year). I'm going to try to finish up blogging Part Five by then.
The last post concerned itself with an annual examination of conscience that is aimed specifically at considering one's progress in devotion and the devout life over the course of the year. When the examination of conscience is completed (over one to three days), Francis prescribes five days of meditations:
Having completed the above... make each of the following considerations the subject of your daily meditation, following the method I have already explained, placing yourself first of all in the presence of God and praying for grace to establish you firmly in his love and service.
The link goes to my post about chapters 2-1 through 2-8 -- in these chapters, Francis carefully explains the basics of prayer and meditation to the total beginner.
So, let's look at the content of these five days of meditation.
Day 1: The Excellence of your Soul.
I think it must be common for people to fall away from devotion, or never to start in the first place, because they think of their own soul as not really worth saving, or not quite good enough or important enough to merit so much attention. It is logical, then, that St. Francis repeatedly begins these series of considerations with meditations on the value of one's own soul: here is another example. Before you embark on a program to work on your soul, you have to believe that this soul is worth working for.
So on this first Day, Francis has you consider the gifts of reason, knowledge, and understanding that you already possess. He has you consider the nobility of your will "capable of loving God and incapable of hating him in himself." He has you consider "how great is your heart which can find no rest except in God and which nothing created can ever satisfy."
In other words, Francis is showing you that your own human nature points you toward God simply by virtue of being a human nature -- and if we stop to think about it for even a moment, we know that every human, no matter how mean and lowly, deserves to become devout. Humans require only love to have that opportunity to the fullest. And however low we may feel, we must admit that we ourselves are worthy of lavishing that work of love even on ourselves.
One of the things which the prodigal son most regretted was that, when he might have been eating delightful food at his father's table, he had been eating husks with swine. 'O my soul, what wretchedness, when you can enjoy God, to be content with anything less.' Lift up your soul in this way; realize that it is eternal and worthy of eternity; stir up your courage to attain this end.
Day 2: The Excellence of the Virtues
Here Francis wants you to stir up your desire to possess the virtues -- certainly whichever virtue you are specially working on, but each and every other besides, because Francis's "method" puts all of them within your reach.
Consider the beauty of the virtues compared with their contrary vices. How beautiful is patience compared with revenge; gentleness compared with anger and acrimony; humility compared with pride and ambition; generosity compared with avarice; charity compared with envy; moderation compared with dissipation!...
Those who know the value of devotion might well exclaim with the woman of Samaria: Lord, give me this water (Jn 4:15)...
Day 3: The Example of the Saints
Francis singles out for consideration martyrs, women martyrs and virgin martyrs in particular; pastors; Stes. Monica an Paula as examples of saintly life as married women and as widows. (Sorry, married men! I get the impression that Francis served as confessor to a lot of women. But I'm sure if you think about it you can come up with some saints that are particular for your situation.)
After such wonderful examples, what is there that we may not do? They were as we are; they did it for the same God and for the same virtues. Why should we not do as much, according to our state of life and our circumstances, in order to keep our cherished resolution and to fulfil our holy protestation?
You see now why it was so important to place that meditation "on the excellence of your soul" first -- otherwise many people would not be able to see so clearly that there is not some special kind of person called a "saint." We really are all called to be so.
Day 4: Christ's Love for Us
Here Francis wants us to consider specifically the act of love in time and history which is the Savior's Passion: the sacrifice on the cross. This is very much a "Jesus is my personal savior" meditation; worth pointing out to people who think the Protestants came up with that idea:
As a woman with child prepares the cradle, the linen and the swaddling clothes, even arranging for a nurse and everything necessary for the child she hopes to bring forth, so our Lord, his goodness, as it were, pregnant with you upon the Cross, wishing to bring your forth to salvation and make you his child, prepared everything you would need: your spiritual cradle, linen and swaddling clothes; your nurse and everything required for your happiness, in other words, all the means, all the attractions and graces by which he guides your soul and seeks to lead it to perfection....
How wonderful to realize... that God has loved you... as though you were the only person in the world to be considered, just as the sun shines on one part of the earth as brightly as though it shone nowhere else.
Day 5: God's Eternal Love for Us
The previous meditation is, as I said, concentrated on the temporal sufferings of Jesus. The fifth meditation steps back to consider love in its eternal unchanging form, that of the Godhead.
Before our Lord, as man, suffered for you on the Cross, as God, he knew and loved you in his infinite goodness. When did he begin to love you? When he began to be God? No, for he is without beginning and without end; he has always been God and so has loved you from eternity...
He tells you so through the Prophet Jeremias in words addressed to you as though there were no one else: With unchanging love I love thee, and now in mercy I have drawn thee to myself. Among other things he thought of drawing you to make your resolutions to serve him.
'How important these resolutions must be, my God, since you have thought of them, considered and designed them from all eternity!..."
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So you see how Francis, in the course of these five days of meditations, leads you from the center of the self ("the excellence of your soul") outward, through the virtues that will illuminate your soul, to the example of other virtuous people throughout history, to God made man loving you in time, to God the Eternal loving you even outside time.
And along the way he encourages you to look at your resolutions, the ones you are about to renew, from all these perspectives.
- Yes, your soul is worthy of your own efforts, including the making and keeping of resolutions.
- Yes, virtue is desirable as an end, for which the means are your resolutions.
- Yes, you can keep your own resolutions; we know this because the saints have kept theirs.
- Your resolution is precious, "the fruit of your Saviour's Passion."
- Indeed, your resolution is eternal, for it has existed from the beginning as an idea in the mind of God that He "considered and designed from all eternity" as a means of your salvation.
If that doesn't get you in the mood to renew your resolutions, nothing will!
In the next post, we'll look at the conclusion of these considerations.
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