St. Francis de Sales and the Universal Call to Holiness
Of all the themes to emerge from the documents of the Second
Vatican Council, the concept of the universal call to holiness is perhaps one
of the most noteworthy. In Lumen Gentium, the
“Dogmatic Constitution on the Church” (November 21, 1964), for example, the
Council Fathers taught that “all are called to sanctity” and that “all
Christians in any state or walk of life are called to the fullness of Christian
life and to the perfection of love. . . .” While they recognized that the
“forms and tasks of life are many,” the Council Fathers insisted that “holiness
is one . . . .” Therefore, “Each one . . . according to his own gifts and
duties must steadfastly advance along the way of a living faith, which arouses
hope and works through love.”
HOLINESS
FOR ALL/DEVOTION
Although
the concept of holiness for all can be traced as far back as the Old Testament,
in the history of spirituality it found a particularly effective proponent in
the person of St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622). This saintly Bishop of Geneva
combined his apostolic zeal for souls with his extraordinary writing ability to
give not only his contemporaries, but also Christians today, a gold mine of
spiritual advice which is still pertinent some four hundred years after it was
written.
SCRIPTURE
The
concept of holiness for all has a solid basis in Sacred Scripture. In the Old
Testament, for example, God said to Moses, "`Speak to the whole Israelite
community and tell them: Be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy’" (Lv. 19:2). In the New Testament Our Lord Himself tells us
in the Sermon on the Mount, "In a word, you must be made perfect as your
heavenly Father is perfect" (Mt. 5:48). Furthermore,
HISTORY
OF SPIRITUALITY
In the
history of spirituality, the concept of holiness for all "had been taught
previously by such theologians and spiritual writers as
At this
time there were at least four currents of thought as to who could attain
perfection and how to go about it. First, as in the Middle Ages, there were
those who believed that one attained holiness by withdrawing from the world and
entering a cloister. Secondly, some maintained that the "easy
devotion" of the humanist Pierre Charron was all
that was required. A third group, inspired by the Rhenish-Flemish
mystics, asserted that the devout life was reserved for a
contemplative elite. A fourth school of thought, and the one to which St.
Francis de Sales adhered, was influenced by Spanish and Italian thinkers. This
group believed in the universal call to holiness, and was inspired to a great
degree by Louis of Granada (1504-1588).
DEVOTION AND SPIRITUAL
DIRECTION
On
As a practical matter, however,
he simply did not have enough time to write to or meet with all the people who
were asking him for spiritual direction. Although he had already begun working
on what would later be known as the Treatise on the Love of God, the idea came
to him, as early as 1602, of writing a more basic guidebook which would
"explain the essence of his direction" and which would leave his readers free
to adapt his ideas "to their personal cases." Some years later, a
young woman, Mme. de Charmoisy, came to Francis for
spiritual direction, but in 1608 she was called away from
DEVOTION = BEING IN LOVE WITH
GOD
The Introduction is written for
the beginner in the spiritual life who is addressed as "Philothea," meaning, "a soul loving, or in love
with, God." The book is divided into five parts. Part I has to do with how
the soul begins to undertake the devout life. Part II deals with prayer and the
sacraments. Part III discusses the practice of virtue. Part IV gives
instructions on overcoming temptations. Finally, Part V teaches how to renew
the soul and confirm it in its desire to lead a devout life.
It is clear from the beginning
that the book was written for the laity. In the Preface Francis plainly states:
My purpose is
to instruct those who live in town, within families, or at court, and by their
state of life are obliged to live an ordinary life as to outward appearances.
Frequently, on the pretext of some supposed impossibility, they will not even
think of undertaking a devout life.
In August
of 1609, a few months after the first edition of the Introduction was
published, Francis reiterated this point in a letter to one of his friends in
which he stated that he had written this book "always having in mind the
people who live amid the pressures of the world."
DEVOTION AND DAILY LIFE
Part of the genius of St.
Francis de Sales was that he not only asserted that devotion was possible in
every way of life, but that he insisted that devotion could be carried out in
different ways, depending upon one’s vocation in life:
Devotion must
be exercised in different ways by the gentleman, the worker, the servant, the
prince, the widow, the young girl, and the married woman. Not only is this
true, but the practice of devotion must also be adapted to the strength,
activities, and duties of each particular person. . . .
It is an
error, or rather a heresy, to wish to banish the devout life from the regiment
of soldiers, the mechanic’s shop, the court of princes, or the home of married
people. It is true, Philothea, that purely
contemplative, monastic, and religious devotion cannot be exercised in such
states of life. However, besides those three kinds of devotion there are
several others adapted to bring perfection to those living in the secular state
. . .
.Wherever we may be, we can and should aspire to a perfect life.
DEVOTION AS PRAYER
Prayer is fundamental to the
spiritual life, of course, and so Francis insisted that time be set aside daily
for mental prayer. However, it is interesting to note that he also insisted
that people be able to pass easily from periods of
prayer to periods of work demanded by their vocation:
I mean that
the lawyer must be able to pass from prayer to pleading cases, the merchant to
commerce, and the married woman to her duties as wife and her household tasks
with so much ease and tranquillity that their minds are not disturbed. Since
both prayer and your other duties are in conformity with God’s will, you must
pass from one to the other with a devout and humble mind.
Other practical aspects of the
spiritual life of the laity, such as the extent of their fasting and the way
they dress must also be adapted to their state in life, according to St.
Francis de Sales. It is clear that he favors
moderation in fasting when he writes:
The more some
men mistreat the body in the beginning, the more they are led to pamper it in
the end. Wouldn’t they have done better to have a program that is balanced and
in keeping with the duties and tasks their state in life obliges them to?
As to the proper way for the
devout lay person to dress, Francis asserts:
For my part, I
would have devout people, whether men or women, always the best dressed in a
group but the least pompous and affected. . . . I would have them adorned with
grace, decency, and dignity.
DEVOTION AND VIRTUE
Perhaps nowhere does St. Francis de Sales better illustrate how a lay
person grows in holiness than he does when he teaches about virtue. His
down-to-earth approach to spiritual direction led him to emphasize what he
called the "little virtues." He began by showing that the kind of
virtues a person must practice varies according to that person’s vocation:
Every state of life must practice some particular
virtue. A bishop’s virtues are of one kind, a prince’s of another, a soldier’s
of a third kind, and those of a married woman are different from a widow’s. All
men should possess all the virtues, yet all are not bound to exercise them in
equal measure. Each person must practice in a special manner the virtues needed
by the kind of life he is called to.
St. Francis de Sales tried to convey to people that there should be no
dichotomy between "the devout life" and the way a person lives his
everyday life in the world. In the very beginning of the Introduction, he says
this:
Genuine, living devotion, Philothea,
presupposes love of God, and hence it is simply true love of God. Yet it is not
always love as such. Inasmuch as divine life adorns the soul, it is called
grace, which makes us pleasing to his Divine Majesty. Inasmuch as it
strengthens us to do good, it is called charity. When
it has reached a degree of perfection at which it not only makes us do good but
also do this carefully, frequently, and promptly, it is called devotion. . .
.In short, devotion is simply that spiritual agility and vivacity by which
charity works in us or by aid of which we work quickly and lovingly.
This type of devotion, or
charity, harms no one, but makes all things more perfect. It must always be
carried out in keeping with one’s vocation:
It not only does no injury
to one’s vocation or occupation, but on the contrary adorns and beautifies it.
. . .every vocation becomes more agreeable when united
with devotion. Care of one’s family is rendered more peaceable, love of husband
and wife more sincere, service of one’s prince more faithful, and every type of
employment more pleasant and agreeable.
St. Francis de Sales taught
that not only should a person practice the virtues suitable to his vocation,
but he should also love his vocation in itself, precisely because that vocation
comes to him from God. He once advised a woman who was seeking peace of soul to
ask God often during the day "to give you love of your vocation, and to
say like
It is
useless, Francis believed, to waste time longing for another way of life. Thus
he again quoted
The belief in
Our Lord’s call to holiness for all found beautiful expression in seventeenth
century