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“…You have mercy on all, because You can do all things and You overlook people’s sins that they may repent. For You love all things that are and loathe nothing that You have made…Your imperishable Spirit is in all things!”
The author of our reading from the Book of Wisdom gives grateful thanks to God for His gentleness, patience, and mercy. The Lord loves all that He has made. All creation is meant, as the reading from Thessalonians reminds us, to glorify God, its loving Creator. Indeed, all of creation bears the imperishable Spirit of the One who has loved it into life.
Our offenses, our failures to give glory to God are not to be denied, nor are they to weigh us down and keep us from moving forward, from being called forth anew by God. We are meant to bear the image of the God who created us in love. In his Treatise on the Love of God, Saint Francis de Sales writes:
“Consider the nature God has given to you. It is the highest in this visible world; it is capable of eternal life and of being perfectly united to His Divine Majesty.” [Treatise 1:1]
When we fail to do so, God gently calls us back into right relationship. This call is an invitation, not a demand, and we respond to that invitation in freedom. Psalm 145 praises God who is “gracious and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness.” Since God is gentle and patient with us, so, too, we must be gentle and patient with ourselves. De Sales captures these qualities in the Introduction to the Devout Life:
“When we have committed some fault if we rebuke our heart by a calm, kind remonstrance, with more compassion for it than passion against it and encourage it to make amendment, then repentance conceived in this way will sink far deeper and penetrate more effectually than fretful, angry, and stormy repentance.” [Introduction III.9]
With this gentleness and patience, we reflect the love of God and, in the words of our reading from Thessalonians, we give glory to our loving Creator.
Our Gospel story puts flesh and blood on the qualities of repentance, gentleness and mercy. Jesus reaches out, looking up into the tree and calling to Zacchaeus rather than waiting for Zacchaeus to climb down and approach him. Jesus seeks the “lost” Zacchaeus and, by coming to where Zacchaeus lives, invites him back into a relationship of love. Zacchaeus repents in a true spirit of humility. He accepts the gentle invitation in freedom. Without being coerced, he offers reparation.
Gentleness, patience, and mercy are qualities of God that we, as creatures who bear His image, are called to reflect. When we witness them in human relationships, we catch glimpses of our creating, redeeming and inspiring God -- alive and smiling -- here on earth.
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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)
Many of us will be opening our doors countless times tonight for little ghosts, ghouls, and goblins who are 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 the person we are on this earth without the need to hide our faces from a God who loves us as 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 as they are!
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“He began to teach them...”
In her book entitled Saint Francis de Sales and the Protestants (in which she examines his missionary activity in the Chablais, one of the most seminal periods in the life of the “Gentleman Saint”), author Ruth Kleinman wrote: “Saintliness is hard to practice, but it is even more difficult to describe.” A notable exception to this dictum are the words we hear proclaimed today in the Gospel of Matthew on this Solemnity of All Saints. Jesus describes saintliness simply and succinctly. It is about living a life of Beatitude:
- Saintly are those who mourn, i.e., those who refuse to harden their hearts when faced with the needs of others.
- Saintly are those who show mercy, i.e., those who are willing to forgo old hurts and to forgive others from their hearts.
- Saintly are those who are poor in spirit, i.e., those who experience everything as a gift and who demonstrate their gratitude through their willingness to share what they have (regardless of how ordinary or extraordinary) with others.
- Saintly are the pure of heart, i.e., those who avoid artificiality and pretense and who have the courage to be their true, authentic selves.
- Saintly are the meek, i.e., those who know that power isn’t demonstrated by taking from others but about giving to others. It’s not about doing to others but about doing for/with others.
- Saintly are the peacemakers, i.e., those who bring people together rather than drive them apart.
- Saintly are those who hunger and thirst for what is right, i.e., those for whom doing good comes with the same frequency and urgency as the need to eat and drink.
- Saintly are those persecuted for doing what is right, i.e., those who are willing to stand up for what is right regardless of the cost(s) incurred.
And as it turns out, not only is sanctity not hard to describe, but also it isn’t nearly as hard to practice as we might think. In a sermon on Our Lady, Saint Francis de Sales observed:
“There is no need of putting ourselves to the trouble of trying to find out what are the desires of God, for they are all expressed in His commandments and in the counsels of Our Lord Himself gave us in the Sermon on the Mount when He said: ‘How blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are the lowly, and the other Beatitudes.’ These are all the desires of God upon which we ought to walk, following these as perfectly as we can.” (Select Salesian Subjects, #0170, p. 37)
Sanctity? To be sure, it is hard work. But with the grace of God – and the support of one another – it is doable!
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“The souls of the just are in the hands of God...”
In one of his pamphlets that was later published in a broader collection entitled The Catholic Controversy, Saint Francis de Sales wrote:
“We maintain that we may pray for the faithful departed, and that the prayers and good works of the living greatly relieve them and are profitable to them for this reason: that all those who die in the grace of God – and consequently, in the number of the elect – do not go to Paradise at the very first moment, but many go to Purgatory…from which our prayers and good works can help and serve to deliver them.”
“We agree the blood of Our Redeemer is the true purgatory of souls, for in it are cleansed all the souls of the world. Tribulations also are a purgatory, by which our souls are rendered pure, as gold refined in the furnace. It is well known that Baptism in which our sins are washed away can be called a purgatory, as everything can be that serves to purge away our offenses. But in this context, we take Purgatory for a place in which after this life the souls which leave this world before they have been perfectly cleansed from the stains they have contracted. And if one would know why this place is called simply Purgatory more than are the other means of purgation above-named, the answer will be, that it is because in that place nothing takes place but the purgation of the stains which remain at the time of departure out of this world, whereas in Baptism, Penance, tribulations and the rest, not only is the soul purged from its imperfections, but it is further enriched with many graces and perfections. And agreeing as to the blood of Our Lord, we fully acknowledge the virtue thereof, that we protest by all our prayers that the purgation of souls – whether in this world or in the other – is made solely by its application.” (CC, pp. 353-354)
Notwithstanding the effects of our prayers and good works on behalf of our dearly departed, Francis de Sales reminds us that at the end of the day it is the life and death of Jesus Christ that purifies our souls, whether in this life or in the next. To that end, whether it’s the just or the unjust, whether it’s in this world or the next, we are all in the hands of God.
Here’s hoping that we pray for our faithful departed. Here’s hoping that our faithful departed pray for us.
And isn’t it true that all of us could stand to do with some purgation of one kind or another!
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“There will be rejoicing among the angels of God over one sinner who repents...”
Whence comes all this rejoicing over repentant sinners? In his Treatise on the Love of God, Francis de Sales wrote:
“God’s favor floats over all life’s difficulties and finds joy in turning all miseries to the greater profit of those who love Him. From toil He makes patience spring forth, contempt of this world from inevitable death, and from concupiscence a thousand victories. Just as the rainbow touches the thorn of aspalathus and makes it smell sweeter than the lily, so Our Savior’s redemption touches our miseries and makes them more beneficial and worthy of love than original innocence could ever have been. The angels, says Our Savior, have ‘more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just who have no need of repentance.’ So, too, the state of redemption is a hundred times better than that of innocence. Truly, by the watering of Our Savior’s blood – made with the hyssop of the cross – have been restored to a white incomparably better than that possessed by the snows of innocence. Like Naaman, we come out of the stream of salvation purer and cleaner than if we had never had leprosy.” (TLG, Book II Chapter 6, pp. 116 – 177)
“Redemption is a hundred times better than innocence.”
Given the fact that all of us suffer from the leprosy of sin in any number of ways, not only should the power of repentance make for rejoicing among the angels in heaven, but also this repentance should produce even greater rejoicing among us here on earth!
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“There will be rejoicing among the angels of God over one sinner who repents...”
Whence comes all this rejoicing over repentant sinners? In his Treatise on the Love of God, Saint Francis de Sales wrote:
“God’s favor floats over all life’s difficulties and finds joy in turning all miseries to the greater profit of those who love him. From toil he makes patience spring forth, contempt of this world from inevitable death, and from concupiscence a thousand victories. Just as the rainbow touches the thorn of aspalathus and makes it smell sweeter than the lily, so our Savior’s redemption touches our miseries and makes them more beneficial and worthy of love than original innocence could ever have been. The angels, says our Savior, have ‘more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just who have no need of repentance.’ So, too, the state of redemption is a hundred times better than that of innocence. Truly, by the watering of Our Savior’s blood – made with the hyssop of the cross – have been restored to a white incomparably better than that possessed by the snows of innocence. Like Naaman, we come out of the stream of salvation purer and cleaner than if we had never had leprosy.” (TLG, Book II Chapter 6, pp. 116 – 177)
“Redemption is a hundred times better than innocence.”
Given the fact that all of us suffer from the leprosy of sin in any number of ways, not only should the power of repentance make for rejoicing among the angels in heaven, but also this repentance should produce even greater rejoicing among us here on earth!
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“I have learned – in whatever situation I find myself – to be self-sufficient...”
“I know indeed how to live in humble circumstances; I know also how to live with abundance. In every circumstance and in all things, I have learned the secret of being well fed and of going hungry, of living in abundance and of being in need.”
Saint Paul is a man who learned one of the secrets to happiness: the ability to roll with the punches. For his part, Saint Francis de Sales equated this virtue – we might call it flexibility or adaptability – with the practice of devotion.
“Devotion is true spiritual sugar for it removes bitterness from mortification and anything harmful from our consolations. From the impoverished it takes away discontent; from the rich it removes anxiety; from the oppressed it removes grief; from the exalted it removes pride; from the solitary it removes loneliness; from those in society it removes overextension. It serves with equal benefit as fire in winter and dew in summer. It knows how to use prosperity and how to endure want. It makes honor and contempt alike useful to us. It accepts pleasure and pain with a heart that is nearly always the same, and it fills us with a marvelous sweetness.” (IDL, Part I, Chapter 2, p. 42)
How can I determine if I am able to be self-sufficient in whatever situation I find myself? How can I tell if I am making progress in the practice of devotion?
The answer – today, how well will you roll with life’s punches?
