Continuing a series on the writings of Elisabeth Leseur, which I started here.
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I just finished up a few posts on Elisabeth's "Essay on the Christian Life of Women," written for her only niece and goddaughter Marie on the occasion of her first communion. Elisabeth also wrote a similar essay for her oldest nephew André, and intended to refine it for the younger boys in her extended family. (Note again that at the time of this writing, French girls and boys typically received their first communion at ages 12 to 14).
As I wrote in the last post, the second letter is not called "on the Christian life of men," but simply "on the Christian life." I think it clear that in the later letter she meant to give general, non-gendered advice; and indeed the letter contains good advice for either men or women; but it still has a masculine sort of tone, a frankness to it, which I appreciate very much.
Let's take a look. After a personal introduction Elisabeth begins her catechesis:
My dear child, the words Orare et laborare ["To pray and to work"] ought to be the motto for our whole life....
If you can understand and practice these two things and make your existence one of work and prayer, there is nothing to fear. Your life will be useful and your death blessed and your influence for good will last for years to come.
The theme of orare et laborare runs through the whole letter. She begins by saying a little bit about each, and then announces that she is going to apply them to different stages of life.
To pray is to believe in and worship God and to acknowledge that our existence has a supernatural goal, and that we have not only a bodily byt also a spiritual life;
- we put God first,
- others before ourselves,
- and ourselves before worldly things, before all that is transitory...
To pray is to live in constant, calm, strong, and lasting union with God, to look at everything from God's point of view, and to be so peacefully anchored in eternity that annoyances... have no ability to disturb us or to drag us down.
...I am not encouraging you to neglect your human responsibilities. When life is established on a solid foundation of faith and when grace sustains us daily, we can live on earth and do our part in building up society... We are still able to enjoy the happiness and love that come our way to a degre scarcely known to those who do not put a little of eternity into their love and pleasure...
Prayer calls for action, just as action requires prayer to inspire and direct it. Orare, yes indeed, let us pray a great deal. Laborare! Let us always work with courage for ourselves, for our brothers and sisters, and for God.
I want to say in a few words how prayer and work ought to exist together in your life and never be separated, and how spirituality and work ought to be combined together during the three major stages of your career.
The three stages of life that Elisabeth outlines are these:
- the time of adolescent crises, intellectual and moral;
- the time of adulthood, of seeking and living out one's vocation;
- the time of venerable old age.
Elisabeth on the moral and intellectual crises of adolescence
Right now and for the immediate future... you wil continue to live... influenced by your first communion. Make the most of this time; you will be strengthening not only your intellect but your heart for the struggle...
Store up reserves of spirituality, of humble, confident faith, of intense charity and kindness.... [Y]ou must have an abundance of good grain stored up in the granary of your heart if you are not to die of hunger during the lean season.
How long will this period of your life last? A year, two years, or perhaps a little longer, but certainly not much more. Then... you will begin the time of moral transformation and individuation, a time of temptation and struggle.
I like this characterization of adolescence as "a time of moral transformation and individuation." She makes it sound like a positive and necessary battle, a kind of death to one kind of self -- the dependent child -- that, it is hoped, will lead to a rebirth as a strong and confident adult Christian.
And yet young people cannot escape the difficulties:
What is the use of denying it or of trying to hide it from you? You will experience temptation under many forms, as varied as the forms of evil itself, and, if you desire to overcome it, you will undergo a harsh struggle from which you will emerge strengthened and prepared for the task God wants for you to do, which is, in the precise sense of the word, your vocation.
...[T]here is for every young man, every young Christian, a time that is absolutely decisive with regard to his physical and moral being, his future here and in eternity.
-- One who wants only to save his soul and has no higher ambition can always entrust himself to God's mercy.
-- And even thouse who have wasted the gifts of nature and grace may hope to become laborers at the eleventh hour, provided they do not die before this hour strikes.
-- But you, son and grandson of Christian women... you may possess holy ambition.
Elisabeth charges her nephew with the possibility of accomplishing great things, due to the great privilege of his upbringing. And what is the essence of that privilege? Not wealth or a fine education; but being son and grandson of Christian women.
You ought not to be a laggard in the Christian army but one of those courageous leaders who encourage others to plant their standard, the cross,...everywhere in the world and in the souls of others. Therefore, when the crisis of which I am speaking comes, you must remember that ... your own future and that of many others influenced by you depend upon your hard work and the decisions you make then.
Here we see Elisabeth's recurring theme that nothing we do is fruitless, that we can't know just how much influence we have.
What is this struggle to look like?
This crisis may take two different forms; it may be exterior, due to human temptations, or interior, affecting your mind and faith... [A]part from a very rare and special grace, temptation will attack you under both these forms.
I am reminded of one traditional interpretation of the second and third Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary: that the scourging at the pillar is meant to make us think of the temptations and outrages against the body, and that the crowning of thorns is meant to bring to mind the temptations and outrages against the mind and heart.
Elisabeth on the first moral crisis:
First of all, you will have to struggle against the world, evil suggestions, bad companions, and a terrible thing that few resist -- sarcasm.
I don't think we had sarcasm yet in the United States in 1906. It figures the French would be ahead of the curve on that one.
To be able to stand firm in spite of a disdainful smile is a sign of great moral strength.
She's not kidding. How often do those who warn our children against the temptations of adolescence pick out that one? And yet to be infected with the need to be sarcastic about everything -- a type of cool that distances you from one and all, that puts up a protective shield around your heart -- is possibly one of the most dangerous of all infections. I know when I am evaluating media for my kids, there's a certain kind of sarcasm -- of meanness -- even in supposedly "family-friendly" books and shows that I rank as more dangerous than a great deal of explicit sex and gratuitous violence.
For you, dear child, I dread a companion who makes fun of you more than one who attacks you. The latter will disgust you, but the former will disturb your peace of mind, and this agitation is often the first sign of defection.
...For the present I only want to tell you that every thought and deed you would not like your mother to know may be regarded by you as evil. This is the great criterion.
A criterion that, of course, depends on the boy's mother being an honorable person whose judgment he trusts. Not all mothers, not all parents would be. I would be careful of trying to generalize Elisabeth's advice to "a boy should regard as evil whatever he would not like his mother to know." This is highly personalized advice; the counselor who wishes to give similar advice to another boy would need to consider which, if any, of the boy's role models would serve as this moral role model.
At the same time, I wish to advise you never to be afraid to tell to your mother everything that might disturb or surprise you. She will understand everything, share and explain everything; she will always be ready to do this, and this loving confidence will certainly protect you against many faults and failures.
Now, as a mother of boys, I feel like Elisabeth is giving me advice. I wonder if she meant for the boy's mother to read this?
Let us turn now to the other form that your moral crisis may assume, namely, the intellectual.
The time will come when you will encounter, more or less unexpectedly, the shock of hearing out doctrines contradicted. Even if the shock is not violent, you will, nevertheless, be aware of the intellectual atmosphere of our times, and perhaps unconsciously you will breathe in the air that surrounds young men of the present day, and in time you will be surprised to find that it has intoxicated you, and that you feel uncomfortable in the atmosphere of faith.
I like the two-atmospheres metaphor. It's apt.
You will notice that an outwardly spiritual life does not correspond with your interior reality, and undoubtedly, in your surprise and discouragement, you will be tempted to leave behind what will seem to you burdensome and a hindrance to the free development of your intellect.
I like the point about noticing that an "outwardly spiritual life" doesn't match an "interior reality." Isn't one of the reasons for departure from the faith -- or departure from so many other things, marriages, jobs, responsibilities to others -- the dislike of so-called hypocrisy -- the idea that we should never go on acting outwardly differently from how we want to feel, how we do feel?
The term "faith" in English is so impoverished compared to its Latinate counterpart fidelity. "Fidelity" is exactly the faith one can go on having when one has difficulty believing, or feeling the once-held truth to be true.
Elisabeth goes on with a stirring appeal to manly courage:
Few people, especially few young men, escape this crisis of faith.
Perhaps we should not regret it, were it not that so many become depressed and irremediably disturbed spiritually. Those who, by God's assistance and by the means about which I now speak pass safely through this dangerous time,
I am sure you will be one of those strong men, not a coward or a weakling, as are unhappily only too many of those who call themselves Christians.
- possess from then on a courageous spirit
- and really understand what faith is.
- They have what Saint Teresa used to call "experimental knowledge" of spiritual things;
- they understand the sphere of faith and how it differs from that of science, which it may be said to extend beyond, since it possesses methods and experiences proper to itself.
- These young men arrive at that stability in faith, certainty in intuition, and vigorous charity that God alone gives when we have earned them by our previous work and humble good will.
- These men are strong apostles; a single one can influence all around him the members of his own family, of society, and also the hearts of others.
With that I'll stop here, and next time discuss Elisabeth's advice for surviving the battle as one of these "strong men."
Elisabeth herself was not particularly devout as a young woman, I gather, so her own experimental knowledge informing this letter isn't of the plaster saint variety.
I've long thought (if not acted as though) sarcasm is poison. Elisabeth writes of it from the perspective of the one on the receiving end, but poison can poison the poisoner as well.
Posted by: Tom K. | 04 August 2013 at 02:59 PM