Supportive friendship
Jane knew how to love and how to love deeply. After God, her husband came first. No one could take the place reserved for him in her heart. Her children, for all their trouble and the sorrow they caused their mother, could always be sure of an open mind and a willing, supportive hand; in short, whatever they needed, she would attain for them if she possibly could.
June’s love for Francis do Sales, while a very human and special kind of love was founded as his was for her, on their love of God, a love that always requires death to self. Francis could count on her prayers, her understanding, her complete cooperation in all his designs for she was confident that he was guided by the Spirit of God in everything.
Finally, there was her relationship with the sisters of her Order, those “most dear daughters,” she called them. While she was to them a superior and leader, the roles bestowed on her by the founder, she preferred a simpler title. She liked to speak of herself as their oldest sister, or servant of the Institute, the one who had known the father longer than the rest and that was the authority she depended on for the leadership she excited. Jane loved the sisters joyously and warmly; never did she try to restrain her affection as we can see in her letters to them whore she was very free with tender expressions, offers of help in every trial, advice from her heart, given generously and most lovingly.
Reflection questions:
1.. Why is winning hearts so helpful in leading and guiding others?
2.How can this be modeled by parents and others in leadership?
3.Why is a person who leads with loving, genuine care more effective than the anxious, bustling type who wants to get the job done?
APPLICATION
Scripture
By this everyone will know you are my disciple, if you have love for one another. (John 13:35)
They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me, and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them, and reveal myself to them. ( John 14:2)
As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. (John 15:9)
JANE’S WORDS
I beg you, dear Sister, govern your community with great expansiveness of heart; give the sisters a holy liberty of spirit and banish from your mind and theirs a servile spirit of constraint. If a sister seems to lack confidence in you, don’t for that reason show her the least coldness, but gain her trust through love and kindness. The more solicitous, open and supportive you are with the sisters, the more you will win their hearts.
The cordial love which we should bear our sisters is not a love of feeling; it is a heart-love, not the heart of flesh, but the heart of the will. Let the senses and all that is of nature turn and twist. Our affection or lack of it, our likes or dislikes, matter not at all, so long as our higher nature remains for and unshaken in this love; so long as we are as ready to give proofs of it when feeling intense repugnance and aversion as when we are enjoying the delights of sensible affection.
God will be your guide in all things if you keep yourself humble and lowly in his presence, supporting your neighbor with the utmost gentleness. This is the chief, the great point. Aim earnestly at serenity in your own soul, he genial in your words and actions and in your manner of supporting your neighbor.