Nothing else can satisfy your soul

 

 

 

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We continue our series with Part V, Chapter 11, “Second Consideration – On the Excellence of Virtue, from An Introduction to the Devout Life. Here Saint Francis encourages us to consider the importance of our souls.

Consider that nothing save holiness and devotion can satisfy your soul in this world: behold how gracious they are; draw a contrast between each virtue and its opposite vice; how gracious patience is compared with vengeance; gentleness compared with anger; humility with pride and arrogance; liberality with avarice; charity with envy; sobriety with unsteadiness. It is one charm of all virtues that they fill the soul with untold sweetness after being practised, whereas vice leaves it harassed and ill at ease. Who would not speedily set to work and obtain such sweetness?

In the matter of evil, he who has a little is not contented, and he who has much is discontented; but he who has a little virtue is gladsome, and his gladness is for ever greater as he goes on. O devout life! you are indeed lovely, sweet and pleasant; you can soften sorrows and sweeten consolations; without you good becomes evil, pleasure is marred by anxiety and distress: verily whoso knows what you are may well say with the woman of Samaria, “Lord, give me this water,”an aspiration often uttered by Saint Theresa and Saint Catherine of Genoa.

 

Questions to ponder:

  1. Saint Francis talks about virtues and their opposite vices. However, consider even more so that virtue is much more than just on the opposite spectrum as vice. For example, the virtue of courage has two opposing vices: 1) fear; and 2) foolhardiness. Virtue is not a mixture of these two vices; instead, virtue transcends (surpasses) them. Have you ever considered virtue/vice in this way? What might this teach us about the nature of virtue and how we can practice it?
  2. How might it help us to understand being a Christian as more than just being a “good” person? Non-Christians can exhibit a lot of the behavior we consider “good.” So what makes being a Christian more than just being good?
  3. True virtue requires supernatural grace in our lives. Does it seem this is what the woman of Samaria and St. Theresa had in mind with her prayer “Lord, give me this water” that Saint Francis mentions above?

 

Read this chapter and the next in the Introduction to the Devout Life on Catholicity.
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