Your lips should be ever sweetened with your God

 

 

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On Sunday we will chat about our words.
We continue our series with Part III, Chapter 26: “Conversation; and, First, How to Speak of God​” from An Introduction to the Devout Life. Here Saint Francis teaches us the importance of keeping our words always focused on pure and holy things.

Physicians judge to a great extent as to the health or disease of a man by the state of his tongue, and our words are a true test of the state of our soul. “By thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned,” the Saviour says. We are apt to apply the hand quickly to the place where we feel pain, and so too the tongue is quick to point out what we love.

If you love God heartily, my child, you will often speak of Him among your relations, household and familiar friends, and that because “the mouth of the righteous speaketh wisdom, and his tongue talketh of judgment.” Even as the bee touches nought save honey with his tongue, so should your lips be ever sweetened with your God, knowing nothing more pleasant than to praise and bless His Holy Name,–as we are told that when Saint Francis uttered the Name of the Lord, he seemed to feel the sweetness lingering on his lips, and could not let it go. But always remember, when you speak of God, that He is God; and speak reverently and with devotion,–not affectedly or as if you were preaching, but with a spirit of meekness, love, and humility; dropping honey from your lips (like the Bride in the Canticles) in devout and pious words, as you speak to one or another around, in your secret heart the while asking God to let this soft heavenly dew sink into their minds as they hearken. And remember very specially always to fulfil this angelic task meekly and lovingly, not as though you were reproving others, but rather winning them. It is wonderful how attractive a gentle, pleasant manner is, and how much it wins hearts.

Take care, then, never to speak of God, or those things which concern Him, in a merely formal, conventional manner; but with earnestness and devotion, avoiding the affected way in which some professedly religious people are perpetually interlarding their conversation with pious words and sayings, after a most unseasonable and unthinking manner. Too often they imagine that they really are themselves as pious as their words, which probably is not the case.

Questions to Ponder:

  1. At the end here Saint Francis touches upon the age-old tension between a person’s outward pious practices and the disposition of the heart. How might this connect when in Matthew 9:13 Jesus quotes Hosea 6:6: “I desire mercy, not sacrifice”? More simply, we could ask: What is the difference between the ‘bending of the knee’ and the ‘bending of the heart’?
  2. In James 3:1-12 we learn about the power of the tongue. How might this Scripture passage shed light on the reflection above?
  3. Where in your life might you let your tongue get the best of you? How might you be able to gain more growth in your spiritual life by taming your tongue?
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