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“Compete well for the faith.” Both the reading from the prophet Amos and the parable from the Gospel of Luke warn us against being complacent which is defined as being “contented to a fault; self-satisfied and unconcerned.” The first and third readings suggest that those who are complacent are those most in danger of experiencing a personal disaster.
Few people decide to become “contented to a fault” all at once. It usually occurs slowly and subtly. We allow good times and experiences to lull us into a false sense of security. We begin to believe that we are somehow above the trials and tribulations of other people. We get the feeling that we have somehow ‘arrived’ despite the fact that life's journey - with its responsibilities, demands, and challenges - is far from over.
Saint Paul certainly recognized the temptation to become “contented to a fault.” What is his remedy? Compete well for the faith. Seek after integrity, piety, faith, love, steadfastness, and a gentle spirit.”
Integrity - a steadfast adherence to a moral or ethical code
Piety - a religious devotion and reverence to God and to others
Faith - a confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea or a thing
Love - a deep, tender, ineffable emotion of affection and solicitude toward others; a sense of underlying oneness
Steadfast – firm, loyal or constant; unswerving
Gentle - considerate or kindly; not harsh or severe
Competing well for the faith requires constant effort. It requires energy. It requires vigilance. It is an ongoing concern. We hear echoes of this in Saint Francis de Sales' understanding of devotion: “Doing what is good carefully, frequently, and promptly.”Simply put, the spiritual life is a life-long process. Regardless of how much progress we might be making at any given point along the journey, we must avoid becoming complacent, of becoming “contented to a fault.” No matter how much we have accomplished individually and collectively in the love of God and neighbor, there is always more good that still must be accomplished: just remember to do it carefully, frequently, and promptly!
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“Do not prevent him, for whoever is not against you is for you.”
"How offensive to God are rash judgments!” says Saint Francis de Sales. “The judgments of the children of men are rash because they are not the judges of one another, and when they pass judgment on others, they usurp the office of our Lord...if an action has many different aspects, we must always think of the one which is best.” (Introduction to the Devout Life, Part III, Chapter 28)
These words of de Sales would have been very good advice for the disciple John in today's Gospel when he asks Jesus to stop a man from expelling demons in His name “because he does not follow in our company.” They are in fact very similar to the advice Jesus himself gives John: “Do not try to stop him. Anyone who is not against you is with you.” John is not the only one who could profit from this advice. Many of us could too.These words of Jesus and Saint Francis de Sales remind us that all those who do the work of Jesus belong to Him, whether they are “of our company” or not. They remind us that we should focus less on denominational labels and more on the actions, spirit, and attitudes of fellow followers of Christ, without in any way diminishing our faith. Most of all, these remind us that if there is any trace of prejudice or bigotry remaining in our hearts against members of other religions, we should rid ourselves of it immediately.
God needs you and me - and Christians everywhere - to be His prophets. Prophets in the Biblical sense typically arise at a time when society has stopped listening to what God says. Biblical prophets speak “on behalf of God.” They do not tell others what will happen; they tell them what should happen. They tell others what God wants and what God says. God desperately needs you and me to speak on His behalf, to tell others what God wants for us. God needs you and me to stand up and be counted on the values of the Gospel. God needs you and me to tell others that God wants peace, not war; life, not death; love, not hate; concern for the other, not preoccupation with self; freedom, not license; truth, not political correctness; justice for all, not discrimination.
In the words of Saint. Francis de Sales, he needs us to “often speak of God in familiar conversation with our...friends and neighbors.” ( Introduction to the Devout Life , Part III, Chapter.26) And “if the world holds us to be fools,” because we are behaving like prophets, “let us hold the world to be mad.” (Ibid, Part IV 4, Chapter 1)
Today we celebrate the life and legacy of Saint Vincent de Paul. In his book entitled This Saint’s for You, Thomas J. Craughwell wrote:
“Vincent de Paul’s…temperament was such that he could never turn away from a person in need, no matter what the need was. The list of troubles he sought to alleviate is astounding. He brought food and medicine to penniless sick people, comforted convicts condemned to row the galleys, and sheltered orphans, the elderly, and soldiers incapacitated by war wounds. He opened hospitals, took in abandoned babies, and taught catechism to children. He founded an order of nuns (the Daughters of Charity) to serve the poor and another for priests to teach and encourage religious devotion among the urban poor and country peasants. In time, the Vincentians’ (as they came to be called) method for educating people in the faith was adopted by many bishops for use in their own seminaries.” (This Saint’s for You, p. 108)
There is nothing new about what Saint Vincent de Paul did. After all, countless saints (both those known and many more unknown) have been doing good things for others in the name of God since the time of Jesus Christ. That said, Vincent de Paul is recognized for continuing to do well-known and well-established good things for other people in new and creative ways – specifically, through his founding of the Daughters of Charity. After all, the Daughters of Charity differed from other religious congregations of that time in that they were not cloistered, making them the first of their kind. In addition, they took a vow of charity on an annual basis, enabling them to maintain the necessary mobility and availability required for the type of ministry in which they were engaged in a revolutionary way. In the big scheme of things, perhaps it is true that there may be nothing new under the sun. However, there are always new and creative ways of doing the things that are well established.
How might God be inviting us just this day to do something not-so-new for other people in exciting, new and novel ways?
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Throughout both the Old and New Testaments, encounters with God almost always seem to involve people leaving something, somewhere or someone. Adam and Eve left Eden; Abraham and Sarah left their homeland; Noah left dry land and later left his boat; Moses and the Israelites left Egypt; Mary left in haste to visit her cousin Elizabeth; the Magi left the East to follow a star; Mary, Joseph and Jesus left Bethlehem ahead of Herod’s rage; Matthew left his tax collecting post.
In other words, following God’s lead generally involves leaving something known.
Be that as it may, leaving – at least, as far as God is concerned – isn’t only about walking away from something, somewhere, or someone. Leaving is also about drawing closer to something, somewhere or someone else. Specifically, loving God – and the things of God – frequently invites us to leave that which is comfortable and familiar in order that we might experience that which is challenging and new. By most standards that’s what growth – human growth – is all about - knowing when it’s time to leave – knowing when it’s time to move on – even when what, where, or who might leave is good and sometimes, very, very good!
One of our greatest temptations in life is to stop moving, to stop growing, to stop changing, to stop learning and to stop developing. There was a time when psychologists seemed to suggest that human beings stopped growing somewhere in their twenties or thirties. Today, we know that human beings continue to grow right up until the day they die…or, at least, they are invited to do so. Leaving – as it turns out - is a part of living.
Leaving is not about doing with less. Very often, leaving is about making room for more.
What, where, how, or who may God invite us to leave today in order that we might have more life - and more love – tomorrow?
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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) 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!
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In his book This Saint’s for You, Thomas Craughwell writes:
“St. Jerome was a Latin scholar in love with the art of fashioning words into beautiful phrases. About the year 366 he became secretary to the newly-elected pope, St. Damasus. It was Damasus’ dream to produce a new Latin translation of the Bible based on the original Greek and Hebrew manuscripts. Recognizing his secretary’s flair with language, the pope believed that Jerome was the man for the job. In the three years that followed Jerome produced beautiful and accurate translations of the psalms, the four Gospels, all of the Epistles and the Book of Revelation."
“To improve the then-current translations of the Old Testament, Jerome studied Hebrew. Frustrated at first, Jerome persisted with language and in twenty-six years he completed his translation of the Hebrew Scripture. During that time, Damasus died and Jerome moved from Rome to Bethlehem, after which Rome itself fell to barbarians. One of Jerome’s letters written during the time when Roman refugees were pouring into the Holy Land survives to this day. Addressing a friend, Jerome wrote, ‘I have set aside my commentary of Ezekiel, and almost all of my study. For today we must translate the words of the Scripture into deeds.” (page 55)
What a privilege it was for Jerome to translate the Old and New Testaments! After all, taken together they constitute the greatest love story of all: the love of a just and faithful God for the human family.
Just today, how can we continue to tell that same love story in words and translate it into deeds?
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“There’s no reason why the world should have ever heard of Therese Martin. She grew up in Lisieux, an obscure town in Normandy, and rarely ventured beyond the tightly knit circle of her immediate family and relatives. At age sixteen she entered the Carmelite cloister, which completely isolated her from the outside world, and she died there when she was only twenty-four. In spite of her rather isolated life, St. Therese has a following among believers that is on par with St. Joseph, St. Anthony and St. Jude. She even has a nickname, ‘the Little Flower.’ And in 1997 Pope John Paul II declared her a Doctor of the Church, which sets her among the Church’s intellectual and mystical heavyweights. How did this happen, this evolution from obscurity to world-wide fame?”
“It all began the year after Therese’s death, when the Carmelites published her spiritual biography, The Story of a Soul. The crucial point in the book is the idea that even the humblest, most mundane task – if done for love of God – can draw one closer to him and make one grow in holiness. At first, many readers dismissed Therese’s ‘Little Way’ (as she called it) as late-nineteenth-French sentimental piety. But even her fiercest skeptics have been surprised to find that her approach to sanctity is really quite mainstream: saints like John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila advocated the same idea, as did Thomas A. Kempis in his book, Imitation of Christ. (Editor’s note: so, too, did St. Francis de Sales in his Introduction to the Devout Life!) Miracles account for the other facet of St. Therese’s popularity. She has a reputation for answering prayers. On her deathbed she promised that – upon reaching heaven – she would rain down miracles on the world ‘like a shower of roses.’”
St. Therese is a shining example of how someone who might mistakenly be considered “the least” was – in fact – one of the greatest - in the eyes of God.
How might God encourage and invite us to transform our littleness into greatness today?
