We conclude our Merciful Advent series with these words from St. Francis de Sales from his Treatise on the Love of God:
Sunday Dec 20
Let us review both men and angels and that whole varied array of nature, qualities, conditions, powers, affections, passions, graces, and privileges which supreme providence has established in the countless multitude of those celestial intelligences and human persons in whom divine justice and mercy are so wonderfully exercised. We shall be unable to keep ourselves from singing with joy filled with respect and loving fear:
All honor, Lord, to your just law I bring,
Your mercy and your righteousness I sing.
We must take the greatest complacence as we see how God exercises his mercy by the many diverse favors he distributes among angels and men, in heaven and on earth, and how he exercises his justice by an infinite variety of trials and punishments. His justice and his mercy are in themselves equally worthy of love and admiration, since both of them are simply one and the same most unique goodness and godhead. TLG 2, 9:1. 97-98
Monday Dec 21
Men’s love for God takes its origin, progress, and perfection from God’s eternal love for men. This is the universal teaching of our Mother the Church, which with ardent jealousy wishes us to acknowledge that our salvation and the means thereto proceed solely from the Savior’s mercy, to the end that on earth as in heaven to him alone there may be honor and glory. “What do you have that you have not received?” asks the divine Apostle as he speaks of the gifts of knowledge, eloquence, and other similar qualities of pastors in the Church. “And if you have received it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?” It is true we have all received all things from God, and especially the supernatural blessings of holy love. If we have received them, why do we take glory for them?
TLG 1, 4:6, 214-15
Tuesday Dec 22
A just soul is the spouse of our Lord. Because it is just only when in the state of charity, as soon as it becomes his spouse it is led into that chamber filled with delightful perfumes of which the Canticle speaks. When a soul thus honored commits a sin, it is stricken and falls into a spiritual swoon. In very truth, such a collapse is completely unforeseen. Who could ever think that any creature would wish to forsake its Creator, its supreme good, for anything as worthless as the allurements of sin? Truly the heavens are astonished at this! If God were subject to passion, he too would faint away at such a calamity, just as when in mortal flesh he died on the cross to redeem us from sin. But since it is no longer necessary for him to use his love to die for us, when he sees a soul plunged into evil it is his wont to speed to its aid. With unrivaled mercy he opens the heart’s door by means of those remorseful stings of conscience which come from the various kinds of light and knowledge he casts into our souls together with salutary movements. By their means, like sweet-smelling, life-giving draughts, he causes the soul to return to herself and makes her again feel well. God does all this “in us but without us” by his most loving goodness which comes to our aid with its gentle strength.
TLG 1, 3:3, 169-70
Wed Dec 23
We must always adore, love, and praise God’s avenging and punitive justice, just as we love his mercy, since both are daughters of his goodness. By his grace he wills to make us good, for he is good, yes, supremely good. By his justice he wills to punish sin because he hates it, and he hates it because, being supremely good, he hates that supreme evil which is iniquity. In conclusion, note that God never withdraws his mercy from us except by the most equitable vengeance of his punitive justice, and that we never escape the rigor of his justice except by his justifying mercy. Always, whether he punishes or gives grace, his good pleasure is worthy of adoration, love and everlasting blessing. Hence “the just man” who sings the praises of God’s mercy over such as shall be saved likewise “shall rejoice when he shall see vengeance.”
TLG 2, 9:8, 118-19