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“You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart, with your whole soul, and with all your mind…You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
Francis de Sales authored the Treatise on the Love of God. Had he lived long enough, he also intended to write a book on the love of neighbor. What is common to both is charity - the love of God and neighbor. Charity was, and is, in the mind and heart of Francis de Sales, the virtue of virtues. We are called to love our God in a neighborly way, and we are called to love our neighbor in a God-like manner.
Needless to say, but say it we will, Francis de Sales has more than a little to share with us about the nature and practice of charity.
"Just as God created man in his image and likeness, so also God has ordained for us a love in the image and likeness of the love due to God's divinity…Why do we love God? The reason we love God is God himself…Why do we love ourselves in charity? Surely, it is because we are God's image and likeness…Since all people have this same dignity, we also love them as ourselves, that is, in their character as most holy and living images of the divinity…The same charity that produces acts of love of God produces at the same time those of love of neighbor….To love our neighbor in charity is to love God in others and others in God." (Treatise on the Love of God, Book 10, Chapter 11)
For St. Francis de Sales, the love of God and the love of neighbor are not two distinct experiences as much as they are two expressions of the same reality, two sides, as it were, of the same coin. (Recall Jesus’ command in last Sunday’s Gospel to “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and to render to God what is God’s.”)
“The great St. Augustine says that charity includes all the virtues and performs all their operations in us,” wrote St. Francis de Sales. “These are his words: ‘What is said about virtue being divided into four’ - he means the four cardinal virtues – ‘in my opinion is said because of the different affections that proceed from love. Hence, I do not hesitate to define those four virtues thus: temperance is love that gives itself entirely to God. Fortitude is love that willingly bears all things for God's sake. Justice is love that serves God alone, and therefore disposes justly all that is subject to human beings. Prudence is love that chooses what is useful to unite itself to God, and rejects all that is harmful.’” (Treatise on the Love of God, Chapter XI, Chapter 8)
"The one who possesses charity has one's soul clothed with a fair wedding garment, which, like that of Joseph, is wrought over with all the various virtues. Moreover, charity has a perfection that contains the virtue of all perfections and the perfections of all virtues." (Ibid)
In charity we find the meeting place of the love of God, the love of self, and the love of others. How well do we share this multi-faceted love with those we meet every day? Put another way, how faithful are we in giving what is due to the things of haven and the things of earth?
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“Live as children of the light…”
In his Letter to the Ephesians Paul describes what it looks like when we are living as “children of the light”:
· We are kind and compassionate to others.
· We forgive others.
· We avoid even speaking of things like immorality, impurity or greed.
· We eschew obscene, silly or suggestive speech.
· We dedicate ourselves to thanksgiving and gratitude.
Even as we strive to “be imitators of God”, we are still imperfect people. Each of us still retains our share of shadows; all of us still struggle with some elements of darkness. What are we – as children of the light – to do about this dilemma? Francis de Sales certainly offers this encouragement:
“It is a great part of our perfection to support one another in our imperfections; what better way is there for us to practice love of our neighbor save in this support?” (Select Salesian Subjects, #0096, p. 22)
The presence of shadows – and even darkness – should not discourage us in our attempts to be children of the light. Rather, let us “live in love” – and demonstrate that love – through our support and encouragement of one another.
Today!
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“To what can I compare the Kingdom of God? It is like a mustard seed…”
It seems paradoxical that Jesus would describe something as vast as the Kingdom of God in terms of one of the smallest of all seeds - the mustard seed. Still, consider how St. Francis de Sales describes eternity in a letter to the Duc de Bellegarde (Peer and Master of the Horse at the courts of both Henri IV and Louis XIII of France):
“Keep your eyes steadfastly fixed on that blissful day of eternity towards which the course of years bears us on; and these as they pass, themselves pass us stage by stage until we reach the end of the road. But meanwhile, in these passing moments there lies enclosed as in a tiny kernel the seed of all eternity; and in our humble little works of devotion there lies hidden the prize of everlasting glory, and the little pains we take to serve God lead to the repose of a bliss that can never end...” (Stopp, Selected Letters, p. 236)
Indeed, the Kingdom of God is a big thing. In fact, it is the biggest and the broadest of all things. As Jesus reminds us, however – and as Francis de Sales underscores – sometimes the biggest of things come in very small, ordinary and everyday packages!
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“He called his disciples to himself…”
Remember the hit TV comedy series Cheers? These are the words from the show’s theme song:
Making your way in the world today takes everything you've got.
Taking a break from all your worries, sure would help a lot.
Wouldn't you like to get away?
Sometimes you want to go here everybody knows your name,
and they're always glad you came.
You wanna be where you can see, our troubles are all the same
You wanna be where everybody knows your name.
You wanna go where people know, people are all the same,
You wanna go where everybody knows your name.
In today’s Gospel we hear that even Jesus knew that “making your way in the world…takes everything you’ve got” and that “taking a break from all your worries sure can help a lot”. So, he went up to the top of a mountain by himself to spend time in prayer with his Father. The next day, he called his disciples to himself and named his Apostles. And to this day – nearly two thousand years later – everybody knows their names.
Just today, how can we make a name for ourselves in the service of God and neighbor? Today, how can we treat others in ways that makes them “glad you came?”
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“Put on the armor of God...”
In a Lenten sermon (1622), Francis de Sales made the following exhortation:
“Fear nothing, I pray you, since you are encompassed with the armor of truth and of faith…This faith is accompanied by the four cardinal virtues: fortitude, prudence, justice and temperance. It uses them as an armored breastplate to put its enemies to flight, or to remain among them firm, invincible and unshaken. So great is its strength that it fears nothing, because not only is it strong, but it is aware of its strength and by whom it is supported – Truth itself. Now there is nothing stronger than truth, in which consists the valor of faith…” (Sermons of St. Francis de Sales for Lent, pp. 21, 39)
Obviously, this “armor of God” is designed to protect us from exterior threats, but it can also be just as helpful in preserving us from interior threats. In a letter to Angelique Arnauld, Francis de Sales wrote:
“The great Apostle (Paul) felt as if an army – made up of his moods, versions, habits and natural inclinations – had conspired to bring about his spiritual death…asserting that the grace of God through Jesus Christ would defend him, not from fear, or terror, or from the fight, but from defeat and from being overcome…” (LSD, pp 1712 – 173)
Francis de Sales tells us that upon rising we should make a “preparation of the day” – that is, we should anticipate all the circumstances, events and people that we will encounter with the hope of knowing which virtues to employ and which vices to avoid. Don’t forget to add “putting on the armor of God” – and the cardinal virtues that come with it - to your daily “to-do” list!
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“And this is my prayer: that your love may increase ever more and more
in knowledge and every kind of perception, to discern what is of value…”
In his commentary on this selection from Paul’s letter to the Philippians, William Barclay observed:
“It was Paul’s prayer for his people that their love would grow greater every day. That love, which was not merely a sentimental thing, was to grow in knowledge and in sensitive perception so that they would be more and more able to distinguish between right and wrong. Love is always the way to knowledge. If we love any subject, we want to learn more about it; if we love any person, we want to learn more about that person; if we love Jesus, we will want to learn more about Him and his truth.”
To the extent that my love of God, self and others is active and growing, it might be well for us to spend some time answering these questions:
What are the things I value in my life? Who are the people I value in my life? How can I put those values into action just today?
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“Trick or treat!!!”
“Trick-or-treating or guising is a customary practice for children on Halloween in many countries. Children wearing costumes travel from house to house in order to ask for treats such as candy (or, in some cultures, money) with the question ‘Trick or treat?’ The ‘trick’ is a (usually idle) threat to perform mischief on the homeowners or their property if no treat is given to them. In North America, trick-or-treating became an ever-growing phenomenon Halloween tradition in the years following the lifting in 1947 of nationwide sugar rationing that had occurred during WWII.”
“The tradition of going from door to door receiving food already existed in Great Britain and Ireland in the form of ‘souling’, where children and poor people would sing and say prayers for the dead in return for cakes. Guising, that is, children disguised in costumes going from door to door for food and coins also predates trick-or-treating, and is recorded in Scotland at Halloween in 1895, where masqueraders - in disguise carrying lanterns made out of scooped out turnips - visited homes to be rewarded with cakes, fruit and money. While going from door to door in disguise has remained popular among Scots and Irish, the North American custom of saying "trick or treat" has become the norm.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trick-or-treating)
(NOTE: in the United States Halloween has become one of the most popular social events for adults, second only to News Years Eve.)
Many of us will be opening our doors countless times tonight for little ghosts, ghouls and goblins who will be wearing disguises and hoping for treats. Isn’t it reassuring that when we approach God in prayer for the many good things that we seek on behalf of ourselves or others, that we don’t need to be disguised – that we don’t need to wear masks – that we don’t need to pretend to be something or someone we’re not? Isn’t it wonderful that we can simply be who we are on this earth without the need to hide our faces from a God who loves us for who we are?
Of course, there’s no “trick” to expressing our gratitude to a God who loves us as we are. The best way is to “treat” others in the same way, that is, to love them not for whom they aren’t, but to love them for whom they are!
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