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“Get rid of all bitterness, anger, harsh words, slander and malice of every kind. In place of these be kind, compassionate and mutually forgiving.”
“In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God. The Word was God. Through the Word God made all things; not one thing in creation was made without the Word.”
Just as the Word who is Jesus Christ is the source of all power, so too, our words are powerful. At their best, our words feed, heal and create. At their worst, our words choke, injure and destroy. St. Paul certainly knew this truth. St. Francis de Sales also knew this truth.
And we know this, too.
St. Francis de Sales observed that negative speech breeds “disdain for one’s neighbor, pride, self-satisfaction and a hundred other very pernicious effects, among them the greatest pest of conversation, slander”. He continued: “Slander is a kind of murder…whoever removed slander from the world would remove a great part of its sins and injustice as well”.
Using words that are “kind, compassionate and mutually forgiving” isn’t just a matter of being nice. No, it’s a matter of justice. It is about giving people their due; it’s about giving people respect and it’s about recognizing people’s God-given dignity. Ultimately, it’s about using the power of our God-given ability that is embodied in language in ways that build up – not tear down – the people of God.
Salesian spirituality is known for its practicality. What could be more practical than using words that help to build up, encourage and support one another? What is more readily available for us to give one another than the words we speak? Even when we need to challenge or correct others, we should still speak in such a way that ultimately promotes healing. Our tongues, says St. Francis “ought to be like a scalpel in the hand of a surgeon who is cutting between nerves and tendons.” St. Jane de Chantal observes: “When you need to correct someone, make it in private and with kindness.”
In the beginning was the Word. May our words continue the story of God’s creative, redemptive and life-giving love. May God’s Word be for all of us the last word. May God’s Word – the Word that gives life – be all the words that we ever need. Beginning today!
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In the Introduction to the book, Francis de Sales, Jane de Chantal: Letters of Spiritual Direction, we read:
“Jane de Chantal continued with her work of overseeing the large family of religious to whom she was the chief spiritual mother. She wrote ardent letters to superiors, novice-mistresses and novices which reflect her struggle to institute a way in which the authentic Salesian spirit might come to be observed everywhere.”
“In her letters of spiritual direction (where her concern was to stay close to the very Salesian spirit of beginning right where one is and with the facts at hand, Jane de Chantal continued to show herself as a masterful director of souls. She brought to this task her own life-experience and temperament. The experience of motherhood was chief among those experiences. Since her youth she had been engaged in the art of biological mothering, and since midlife she had exercised her spiritual maternity. The correspondence she maintained with the superiors of the Visitation reflects a self-conscious cultivation of attitudes and skills she believed were congruent with maternal care. Superiors were enjoined to be true mothers, tolerant of their children’s weaknesses, encouraging their small steps, never overly ambitious for their advancement until they themselves grew into the maturity of spiritual wisdom…This task of cultivating and disseminating this spirit of motherly direction occupied Jane de Chantal for many years. It was part of her long-term effort to ensure the survival – both institutional and spiritual – of the Salesian charism in its manifestation as the order of the Visitation.” (LSD, p. 32)
Jane de Chantal shows us a sure and certain method for bringing out the good in others. Her approach included:
- Beginning right where she with the facts at hand
- Nurturing others
- Tolerating others’ weaknesses
- Encouraging small steps
- Allowing others to experience spiritual maturity at their own pace.
We are the beneficiaries of Jane de Chantal’s efforts to ensure the survival of the Salesian charism. How can we pick up where she left off - just today?
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“Son of man, he then said to me, feed your belly and fill your stomach with this scroll I am giving you. I ate it, and it was as sweet as honey in my mouth…”
Francis de Sales opened his preface to the Spiritual Directory by drawing on these same verses above from the book of the prophet Ezekiel. In addition, Francis included the following words below:
“This book will prove bitter to your interior, for it will lead to the perfect mortification of your self-love. It will, on the other hand, be sweeter than honey in your mouth, because there is no consolation equal to that of mortifying our self-love in order to let live and reign in us the love of him who dies for love of us. In this ay your bitterness will be transformed into the sweetness of a perfect peace, and you will be filled with true happiness.
Mortification of our self-love, self-absorption and self-centeredness? Sure, it’s tough. Yes, it can be distasteful. But how can this even come close to the sweetness that comes from becoming the people that God created us to be – images and likenesses of his only Son and our savior?
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Today we remember the ultimate witness to the love of God made by the Polish Conventual Franciscan friar, Maximilian Kolbe. “During the Second World War, he provided shelter to refugees from Greater Poland, including 2,000 Jews whom he hid from Nazi persecution in his friary in Niepokalanów. On 17 February 1941, he was arrested by the Gestapo and imprisoned in Pawlak prison. On 28 May, he was transferred to Auschwitz as prisoner #16670. At the end of July 1941, three prisoners disappeared from the camp, prompting the deputy camp commander to select ten men to be starved to death in an underground bunker in order to deter further escape attempts. When one of the selected men cried out, ‘My wife, my children,’ Kolbe volunteered to take his place.” “In the starvation cell, he celebrated Mass each day and sang hymns with the prisoners. He led the other condemned men in song and prayer. Each time the guards checked on him, he was standing or kneeling in the middle of the cell and looking calmly at those who entered. After two weeks of dehydration and starvation, only Kolbe remained alive. The guards administered to Kolbe a lethal injection of carbolic acid. Some who were present at the injection say that he raised his left arm and calmly waited for the injection. His remains were cremated on 15 August, the feast of the Assumption of Mary.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximilian_Kolbe)
How might we be called to bear witness to our faith in Jesus Christ today?
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“Blessed are you among women ...”
Our Salesian reflection for this Feast Day – the Assumption – comes entirely from Francis de Sales’ Treatise on the Love of God, Book 7, Chapter 14.
“I do not deny that the soul of the most Blessed Virgin had two portions, and therefore two appetites, one according to the spirit and superior reason, and the other according to sense and inferior reason, with the result that she could experience the struggle and contradiction of one appetite against the other. This burden was felt even by her Son. I say that in this heavenly Mother all affections were so well arranged and ordered that love of God held empire and dominion most peaceably without being troubled by diversity of wills and appetites or by contradiction of senses. Neither repugnance of natural appetite nor sensual movements ever went as far as sin, not even as far as venial sin. On the contrary, all was used holily and faithfully in the service of the holy love for the exercise of the other virtues which, for the most part, cannot be practiced except amid difficulty, opposition and contradiction…”
“As everyone knows, the magnet naturally draws iron towards itself by some power both secret and very wonderful. However, there are five things that hinder this operation: (1) if there is too great a distance between magnet and iron; (2) if there is a diamond placed between the two; (3) if the iron is greased; (4) if the iron is rubbed with onion; (5) if the iron is too heavy.”
“Our heart is made for God, and God constantly entices it and never ceases to cast before it the allurements of divine love. Yet five things impede the operation of this holy attraction: (1) sin, which removes us from God; (2) affection for riches; (3) sensual pleasures; (4) pride and vanity; (5) self-love, together with the multitude of disordered passions it brings forth, which are like a heavy load wearing it down.”
“None of these hindrances had a place in the heart of the glorious Virgin. She was: (1) forever preserved from all sin; (2) forever most poor in spirit; (3) forever most pure; (4) forever most humble; (5) forever the peaceful mistress of all her passions and completely exempt from the rebellion that self-love wages against love of God. For this reason, just as the iron, if free from all obstacles and even from its own weight, would be powerfully yet gently drawn with steady attraction by the magnet – although in such wise that the attraction would always be more active and stronger according as they came closer together and their motion approached its end – so, too, the most Blessed Mother, since there is nothing in her to impede the operation of her Son’s divine love, was united with him in an incomparable union by gentle ecstasies without trouble or travail.”
“They were ecstasies in which the sensible part did not cease to perform its actions but without in any way disturbing the spiritual union, just as, in turn, perfect application of the spirit did not cause any great distraction to the senses. Hence, the Virgin’s death was the gentlest that can be imagined, for her Son sweetly drew her after the odor of his perfumes and she most lovingly flowed out after their sacred sweetness even to the bosom of her Son’s goodness. Although this holy soul had supreme love for her own most holy, most pure, and most lovable body, yet she forsook it without any pain or resistance…At the foot of the cross love had given to this divine spouse the supreme sorrows of death. Truly, then, it was reasonable that in the end death would give her the supreme delights of love.”
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“I will re-establish my covenant with you…”
In his Treatise on the Love of God, Francis de Sales wrote:
“In his infinite mercy God would never be unbending toward the work of his hands. He saw that we were clothed ‘in flesh, a wind’ which is dissipated as it goes, ‘and does not return.’ Therefore, according to the bowels of his mercy he did not will to cast us into total ruin, nor to take from us the sign of his lost grace. This was in order that as we saw him and felt within us this covenant and this inclination to love him, we should strive to do so, and that no one could justly ask, ‘Who will show us good things?’ By this natural inclination alone we cannot attain the joy of loving God as he should be loved. Still, if we would only use it faithfully, the sweetness of God’s divine mercy would grant us some help and by it we might go forward. If we cooperate with this first assistance God’s fatherly goodness would afford us another still greater help. He would most gently lead us from good to better, until he had brought us to the supreme love toward which our own inclination naturally urges us. It is certain that to him he who ‘is faithful over a few things’ and has done what is in his power, a benevolent God never denies his help to advance him more and more.” (TLG, Book I, Chapter 18, p. 98)
This faithfulness is the nature of God’s covenant with us. Notwithstanding our infidelity, God is forever faithful to us. No matter what we do or don’t do, God “never denies his help” to us in our attempts – however imperfect - to be the people that God calls us to be.
Today, what return can we make for such mercy and generosity on God’s part? The answer - by doing our level best to never deny our help to others in need.
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“If a man is virtuous, he shall surely live…”
Practicing virtue – that is, developing the habit of doing what is good – is the ultimate expression of any authentic spirituality. In the Salesian tradition, it isn’t enough to do what is good, but one also has to do what is good in ways that fit the state and stage of life in which one finds oneself.
In her book Earth Crammed with Heaven, Elizabeth Dreyer wrote:
“Francis de Sales stands out as one who was firmly convinced that people in every walk of life are called to holiness. His life’s effort, truly innovative in his day, was to help people find God in their particular life calling. The nearness of God was not the exclusive domain of any one group in the church. ‘True devotion,’ he said, ‘adorns and beautifies any vocation or employment.’ He constantly opposed the tendency, frequently found among those who want to live a spiritual; life, to seek the virtues of another state in life while neglecting those proper to one’s vocation. The home is not a convent, and the virtues of the monastic life are not lived in the same way in family life…” (p. 46)
We will truly live to the extent that we practice virtue. We will truly live life to the full to the extent that we practice the virtues proper to the events, circumstances and relationships that we experience day in and day out.
Today, what virtues might God be calling you to practice?
