*****
“Seek the Lord while he may be found, call to him while he is near.”
Whether we are conscious of it or not, all of us seek the Lord in our lives. We look for God in our homes, our neighborhoods, schools and offices. We look for God in our successes and setbacks. We look for God in our hopes, our fears and our dreams. We look for God in all that we must accomplish today.
With all that we have on our plate, who has time for all this seeking? Truth is that seeking God is not about doing anything extra, because seeking God is merely opening our minds, hearts, ears, eyes and imaginations to a God who is always with us in the midst of all the things that we have on our plate.
St. Francis de Sales wrote:
“God is in all things and all places. There is no place or thing in this world in which God is not truly present. Just as wherever birds fly, they always encounter the air, so also wherever we go or wherever we are we find God present. Everyone knows this truth - intellectually - but not everyone is successful in bringing this truth home to themselves.” (Introduction to the Devout Life, Part II, Chapter 2)
Not only is God always where you are "but (he is) also present in a most particular manner in your heart and in the very center of your spirit. He enlivens and animates you by his divine presence, for God is there as the heart of your heart and the spirit of your spirit." (Ibid)
So the problem is not that God is not present in our lives; rather, we simply - and tragically - fail to recognize God's presence. Francis wrote:
“Although faith assures us of his presence, yet because we do not see him with our eyes we often forget about God and behave as if God were far distant from us. While we intellectually know that God is present in all things, we fail to reflect upon this truth and act as if we did not know it.” (Ibid)
One of the most powerful and effective means to seek the Lord - to see the Lord who is always present - is prayer. No matter how busy, frustrated, lonely or elated we become or no matter how full our daily plate might be, we can always pray a word, a phrase, a thought or image that reminds us that the God who created us, who redeemed us and who inspires is, indeed, Emmanuel, a name that means God-is-with-us!
Why is this truth so important? When we are aware of the presence of God, we are more likely to treat one another in a loving, peaceful, caring, kind, truthful and gentle manner. By contrast, when we fail to recall the presence of God, we…well…we are more likely to behave in ungodly ways.
Seek...see the Lord who is always present in yourself...in others...in all the activities of each day. Remember to think, feel, dream, work and act accordingly!
*****
"No one who lights a lamp conceals it with a vessel or sets it under a bed; rather, he places it on a lampstand so that those who enter may see the light…”
Lighting a lamp, only to subsequently hide it? From a Salesian perspective, that certainly sounds a lot like the practice of false humility.
In a Lenten sermon, Francis de Sales made the following observation:
“We must indeed keep ourselves humble because of our imperfections, but this humility must be the foundation of a great generosity, for the one without the other degenerates into imperfection. Humility without generosity is only a deception and a cowardice of the heart that makes us think that we are good for nothing and that others should never think of using us for anything great.”
Imperfect as we are, the light of God’s love implanted in us is not meant to be hidden – it is meant to be shared. So, let your light shine for and with others!
Today!
*****
“My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and act on it.”
In earlier times in human history – before the development and growth of urban centers – communities tended to be small and tight-knit. Everybody knew everybody else, so much so, that when asked to identify members of a particular clan, tribe or family it was easy to pick them out by how they looked, spoke or acted.
We are children of the Father, siblings of Jesus and embodiments of the Holy Spirit.
How easily do others identify us as members of God’s family by how we look, speak and act?
*****
“Take nothing for the journey, neither walking stick, nor sack, nor food, nor money, and let no one take a second tunic.”
When it comes to making progress along the road of life, Jesus is challenging us to travel lightly. While we should make some long-term plans for our lives and adjust those plans on a daily basis, Jesus urges us to resist the temptation to pack too many things that we figure we might “need” for the journey.
All of us probably have seen people struggling with way-too-much luggage on vacation. In their attempt to prepare for just about every contingency that they might encounter during the course of their journey, they overdo it. What is the result? Ironically enough, all the stuff that they packed to help them prepare for the trip ends up becoming the biggest hindrance on the trip.
In a letter addressed to Jane de Chantal (January 1615), Francis de sales wrote:
“May God be with you on your journey. May God keep you clothed in the garment of his charity. May God nourish your soul with the heavenly bread of his consolation. May God bring you back safe and sound…May God be your God forever.” (Stopp, Selected Letters, p. 226)
Whatever else she may have packed for her journey, Francis de Sales invited her (in the form of a blessing) to focus on the few things that she would truly need for her trip. The list might not sound like much, but upon closer review, it contains Those things that really matter.
Today, what provisions – if anything – will we choose to bring with us on the journey of life?
*****
“Consider your ways!”
The verb “consider” is defined:
- to think about (something or someone) carefully especially in order to make a choice or decision
- to think about something that is important in understanding something or in making a decision or judgment
- to think about (a person or a person's feelings) before you do something
In Part One of his Introduction to the Devout Life, Francis de Sales offers us a great many things to “consider”:
- “Consider that a certain number of years ago you were not yet in the world.”
- “Consider the nature that God has given to you. It is the highest in this visible world and is capable of eternal life and of being perfectly united to the Divine Majesty.”
- “Consider the unhappiness of worldly people who live as if they believe themselves created only to build houses, plant trees, pile up wealth and do frivolous things.”
- “Consider the corporal benefits that God has bestowed on you.”
- “Consider your gifts of mind.”
- “Consider your spiritual favors.”
- “Consider your evil inclinations and how often you give way to them.”
- “Consider particularly the sin of ingratitude to God.”
- “Consider how uncertain the day of your death is.”
- “Consider that there will come a time for you when the world will no longer be.”
- “Consider the long, languishing goodbye that your soul will give to this world.”
- “Consider with what haste others will carry away your body and bury it in the earth.”
- Consider how the soul – after leaving the body – goes its way, either to the right or to the left. Ah, where will your soul go?”
- “Consider the nobility, beauty and the number of the citizens and inhabitants of heaven.”
- “Consider that you stand between heaven and hell and that each of them lies open to receive you according to the choices you make.”
- “Consider that the choice of one or the other of them that we make in this world will last eternally in the world to come.”
What might you spend some time considering just this day?
*****
“In the sight of the angels I will sing your praises, Lord…”
In his Treatise on the Love of God, Francis de Sales wrote:
“Sacred providence determined to produce all things, both natural and supernatural, for the sake of our Savior so that angels and men might serve him and thus share in his glory. For this reason, although God willed to create both angels and men with free will, free with a true freedom to choose good and evil, still, to testify that on the part of God’s goodness they were dedicated to what is good and to glory, he created all of them in the state of original justice, which is nothing other than a most sweet love which would dispose them for, turn them towards and set them on the way to eternal happiness.” (TLG, Book II, Chapter 4, p.112)
St. Francis de Sales believed that we have at least two things in common with the angels: (1) God created us with freedom and (2) God gave us a freedom tending toward what “is good and to glory”. Of course, God’s plans went awry in both cases. First, there was a revolt among some of the angels (recall the story of Lucifer) who resented having to pay homage to God. With this revolt God “resolved to abandon forever that sad and wretched legion of traitors who in furious rebellion had so shamefully abandoned him”. Second, (in the persons of Adam and Eve) “man would abuse his liberty, forsake grace and thus lose glory. Yet, God did not will to deal with human nature in so rigorous a way as he had decided to deal with angelic nature…he looked with pity upon our nature and resolved to have mercy on it”. (Ibid, pp. 112 - 113) In the Salesian tradition, then, what distinguishes us from the angels are the lengths to which God will go to redeem us. In the case of the rebellious angels, God simply banished them from his presence. In the case of his rebellious creatures – people like you and me – God not only does not banish us, but he also sent his only Son to redeem us. Francis de Sales says that the problem with many people who wish to pursue a life of devotion is that they make the mistake of trying to live like angels when they should be trying to live like good men and women. Given the fact that even the angels have had their share of challenges, maybe we have more than enough on our plates just being human without trying to be angelic, too.What’s the moral of the story? Let’s do our level best to sing God’s praises in the sight of the angels, but let’s do it as humanly as possible!
*****
“Pay attention to what I am telling you.”
Some things in life are more important than others. With the hope of trying to impress upon another person that what we are about to say is of greater importance than other things, more often than not, we will preface our advice with words like “listen up,” “pay attention” or “this is really important”.
While we’d like to think that everything that Jesus said is of equal importance, Jesus clearly wanted to impress his disciples with the inevitability of his showdown with the religious leaders of his time. And while we know that Jesus raised this issue more than a few times in the Gospels, the disciples seem to have had difficulty in grasping the importance – even, the necessity – of this prediction.
In his Treatise on the Love of God, Francis de Sales wrote:
“The more pleasant and excellent are the objects our senses encounter, the more ardently and avidly do they enjoy them. The more beautiful, the more delightful to our sight, and the more effectively lighted they are, the more eagerly and attentively do our eyes look to them. The sweeter and more pleasant a voice or music is, the more completely is the ear’s attention drawn to it. This force is more or less strong in accordance with the greater or lesser excellence of the object, provided that it is proportionate to the capacity of the sense desiring to enjoy it. For example, although the eye finds great pleasure in light, it cannot bear extremely strong light, nor can it look steadily at the sun. No matter how beautiful music may be, if it is too loud and too close to us, it strikes harshly on the ear and disturbs it.” (TLG, Book III, Chapter 9, p. 186)
There are so many things that Jesus wants us to learn about the living in God’s love.
How well will we pay attention to what God may be telling us about those ways - just today?
