The Life of Perfection

I can’t speak for anybody else, but I need all the help I can get. As a writer, I often find that I love having written much more than actually writing. I distract myself easily. It doesn’t help, I suppose, that I tend to write in bursts, like I’m emptying my brain. Then I rather need to recharge the brain before I discharge it again.

That’s when my mind tends to wander. Like right now, I’m going to wander off and find some coffee.

OK that’s better. Coffee is a help in the morning, and as I said, I need all the help I can get.

The next few days contain the feasts of three different patron saints for writers:

The 28th is the feast of Saint Thomas Aquinas, probably one of the five smartest people ever to walk the earth (and one of my name saints).

Tomorrow is the feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul, the guy who wrote most of the books in the New Testament.

Today, however, is the feast of Saint Francis de Sales. You can read about his remarkable life on Wikipedia or (slightly more exhaustively) the Catholic Encyclopedia.

I first met Saint Francis de Sales through his writing, particularly his most famous book, Introduction to the Devout Life. It says a lot about him, I think, that his other major work is titled Treatise on the Love of God.

His writing is simply sublime. Gentle, but not yielding. I have often prayed for his wisdom and his persuasiveness. Anybody who can convert the Calvinist stronghold of Geneva back to the Catholic faith could convince anyone of the truth!

My prayers are, of course, the second way I got to know him, if only a little, for he is in that great “cloud of witnesses” (Heb. 12:1), a member of the communion of saints (Creed) who intercede with us before God (Rev. 5:8).

And as I said, I need all the help I can get.

To get a taste of the Saint’s works, here is the second reading from today’s Office of Readings. It’s a good meditation on diversity of religious experience, and it contains his exhortation to us to seek holiness.

Become a saint! What else is there?

When God the Creator made all things, he commanded the plants to bring forth fruit each according to its own kind; he has likewise commanded Christians, who are the living plants of his Church, to bring forth the fruits of devotion, each one in accord with his character, his station and his calling.

I say that devotion must be practised in different ways by the nobleman and by the working man, by the servant and by the prince, by the widow, by the unmarried girl and by the married woman. But even this distinction is not sufficient; for the practice of devotion must be adapted to the strength, to the occupation and to the duties of each one in particular.

Tell me, please, my Philothea, whether it is proper for a bishop to want to lead a solitary life like a Carthusian; or for married people to be no more concerned than a Capuchin about increasing their income; or for a working man to spend his whole day in church like a religious; or on the other hand for a religious to be constantly exposed like a bishop to all the events and circumstances that bear on the needs of our neighbour. Is not this sort of devotion ridiculous, unorganised and intolerable? Yet this absurd error occurs very frequently, but in no way does true devotion, my Philothea, destroy anything at all. On the contrary, it perfects and fulfils all things. In fact if it ever works against, or is inimical to, anyone’s legitimate station and calling, then it is very definitely false devotion.

The bee collects honey from flowers in such a way as to do the least damage or destruction to them, and he leaves them whole, undamaged and fresh, just as he found them. True devotion does still better. Not only does it not injure any sort of calling or occupation, it even embellishes and enhances it.

Moreover, just as every sort of gem, cast in honey, becomes brighter and more sparkling, each according to its colour, so each person becomes more acceptable and fitting in his own vocation when he sets his vocation in the context of devotion. Through devotion your family cares become more peaceful, mutual love between husband and wife becomes more sincere, the service we owe to the prince becomes more faithful, and our work, no matter what it is, becomes more pleasant and agreeable.

It is therefore an error and even a heresy to wish to exclude the exercise of devotion from military divisions, from the artisans’ shops, from the courts of princes, from family households. I acknowledge, my dear Philothea, that the type of devotion which is purely contemplative, monastic and religious can certainly not be exercised in these sorts of stations and occupations, but besides this threefold type of devotion, there are many others fit for perfecting those who live in a secular state.

Therefore, in whatever situations we happen to be, we can and we must aspire to the life of perfection.

(Introduction to the Devout Life, Saint Francis de Sales, bishop and Doctor of the Church)