Yesterday in our post on temptations we quoted St Francis de Sales as saying “And let us not entertain the hope of being or wishing to be saints in three months! Shun both spiritual avarice and the ambition which causes so much disorder in our hearts.”
What is spiritual avarice?
St. Francis de Sales tells us: “ The spiritually avaricious are those who can never have enough of embracing and seeking after countless exercises of piety, hoping thereby to attain perfection all that much sooner, they say. They do this as though perfection consisted in the multitude of things we do and not in the perfection with which we do them! I have already said this very often, but it is necessary to repeat it: God has not placed perfection in the multiplicity of acts we perform to please Him, but only in the way we perform them, which is simply to do the little we do according to our vocation, in love, by love, and for love.
Please consider the spiritually avaricious. They are never content with the spiritual exercises presented to them. They ceaselessly struggle to find new ways of joining the sanctity of all the various saints into the one they would like to have. As a result, they are never content, since they cannot possibly embrace all they hope to. Whoever embraces too much enchains himself therein.
Practice well and as perfectly as possible that to which your condition and vocation oblige you. Have sweet and tranquil attention in doing well what we do for God.”
(St Francis de Sales, Sermon for 1st Sunday of Lent, 1622)
Reflection:
Do I exhibit any of these signs of spiritual avarice?
How can I counteract this in my own spirituality, according to St. Francis de Sales?