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“Do nothing out of selfishness…rather, humbly regard others as more important than yourselves, each looking out not for his own interests but also for those of others...”
To live humbly, as St. Augustine said, is to live in the truth: the truth about God, the truth about ourselves and the truth about others. This living in the truth is no mere intellectual exercise; it is something that should make a profound difference in the way we live our lives.
St. Francis de Sales saw Jesus Christ as the perfect model of humility. What was the truth about Jesus? First, Christ was divine. Second, Christ did not selfishly cling to his divine nature. Third, Christ generously and freely shared his power (in conformity with the Father's will) with individual men, women and children in a particular time, in a particular space and in a particular place in human history. Fourth, so enamored of us was Christ that he shared his divinity with us by becoming fully human by experiencing birth, celebrating life, and embracing death.
The mystery of his self-emptying is only fully understood in the light of his divine power. The significance of his humility is all the greater when seen as an expression of his absolute generosity. His service to us is all the more remarkable when we consider it should have been us serving him.
To be humble is to live in the truth as Jesus did. Like Christ, we must first acknowledge that since we are made in the image and likeness of God, we, too, are good. Second, we have to acknowledge that our God-given dignity is not meant to serve our own needs alone, but rather, we are created to “look to others’ interests rather than our own.” Third, we acknowledge that as good and beautiful and holy as the created order may be, our ultimate glory is to live forever in heaven. Fourth, we walk in the belief that only those who lay down their lives each day in service each day will be raised up on the last day.
Our glory is not found in clinging to our God-given dignity and destiny. No, our power is most vividly and powerfully glorified when we use that dignity and destiny to reach out to one another in love. Like Christ, we are most powerful when we devote ourselves to pursuing the health, holiness and happiness of others.
Like Christ, humble servants know that they can be truly happy only by making their very best effort every day to “make complete” the joy of others. By emptying ourselves, we make more room for others…and in the process we come to know the fullness of joy ourselves by becoming fully human as God has intended.
To be sure, every knee must bend in heaven, on earth and under the earth before the presence of the Almighty. However, we who walk in the presence of God must also stand tall for and live in the truth: for God, for ourselves, and especially, for one another.
Today!
“Do not prevent him, for whoever is not against you is for you.”
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“How offensive to God are rash judgments!” says St. 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 difference 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 St. 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. We should avoid the tendency to presume the worst of those who are not members of our tribe or group. 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, today’s Gospel admonition reminds 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 such burdens…and of such blindness.
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 don’t predict the future; they describe and diagnose the present. They tell others what God wants and what God says.
· 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 St. Francis de Sales, God 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, Ch.1)
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“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) 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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In his book This Saint’s for You, Thomas Craughwell writes:
“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?
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“Their angels in heaven always look upon the face of my heavenly Father…”
God not only calls us to live a holy life; God also provides us with the means to live that life – what Francis de Sales calls “aids” – and to help us to become holy people. In a conference (“On Constancy”) given to the Sisters of the Visitation, Francis de Sales remarked:
“The aids that God gives to us are intended to help us to keep steadily on our way, to prevent our falling, or, if we fall, to help us to get back up again. Oh, with what openness, cordiality, sincerity, simplicity and faithful confidence ought we to dialogue with these aids, which are given to us by God to help us in our spiritual progress. Certainly, this is true in the case of our good angels. We ought to look upon them in the same way, since our good angels are called angel guardians because they are commissioned to help us by their inspirations, to defend us in perils, to reprove us when we err and to stimulate us in the pursuit of virtue. They are charged to carry our prayers before the throne of the majesty, goodness and mercy of Our Lord and to bring back to us the answers to our petitions. The graces, too, which God bestows on us, He gives through the intervention or intercession of our good angels. Now, other aids are our visible good angels, just as our holy angel guardians are our invisible ones. Other aids do visibly what our good angels do inwardly, for they warn us of our faults; they encourage us when we are weak and languid; they stimulate us in our endeavors to attain perfection; they prevent us from falling by their goods counsels, and they help us to rise up again when we have fallen over some precipice of imperfection or fault. If we are overwhelmed with weariness and disgust, they help us to bear our trouble patiently, and they pray to God to give us strength so to bear it so as not to be overcome by temptation. See, then, how much we ought to value their assistance and their tender care for us …” (Conference III, pp. 41-42)
In the mind of Francis de Sales, God provide us with invisible support for our journey in this life through those “aids” known as “angel guardians”. It’s safe to say that some of the most visible “aids” that God uses to provide support for our journey in this life are known by another name: “friends”.
How can we imitate the invisible example of the angel guardians by befriending one another today in very visible ways?
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“I have dealt with great things that I do not understand; things too wonderful for me, which I cannot know.”
When you really think about it, it is somewhat presumptuous to speak to God, to ask God questions, to seek God’s favor or to suggest to God that there might be betters ways of doing things. After all, as the reading from the Book of Job reminds us, who has a greater resume than God?
This is essence of the Salesian tradition’s understanding of humility, of littleness and of ordinariness. We stand speechless in the presence of such an awesome God. We stand in awe of how God transforms us from being nothing – in his eyes, at least – to being everything! We hear with Mary’s exclamation in the Magnificat: “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my savior. For he has looked upon his handmaid’s lowliness; behold, from now on will all ages call me blessed. The Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name.”
In the opinion of St. Francis de Sales, this overwhelming realization of our littleness in the face of God’s greatness should not result in helplessness or complacence; rather, it should express itself in our practice of (1) gratitude, and (2) generosity. Put another way, returning thanks to God for all that God has given us is best expressed in our willingness to share what we have received from God with others.
So, what is our takeaway from today’s selection from the Book of Job? Perhaps, many a day the essence of our prayer should be less about how to speak to God and more about listening to God, specifically, how deeply God loves us and desires that we love one another. If we should need to answer God, consider using these words: “Thank you”.
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