“Come back to me with all your heart!” (Jl 2, 12). A few weeks ago, starting Lent, we heard this call from the Lord, a call to retire with our Father who is “present in secret” (Mt 6, …). Prayer is not the whole of spiritual life. She is however essential because it is the privileged place where God speaks to the heart of each one, “in secret”.
Through his correspondence, Saint Francis de Sales educated many people to an authentic prayer life. In particular, he maintains a spiritual correspondence with Mme Brûlart whom he met in 1604 in Dijon, at the same time from Jeanne de Chantal. Mrs Brûlart must reconcile her deep desire for a spiritual life with her vocation as a mother and with the “worldliness” to which her husband’s work obliged her. She holds on to a life of prayer, but it does not always live up to his expectations. Text Letter 277 to Madame Marie Brûlart March 1605 Complete Works, Annecy Edition, vol. XIII, p 19-20 You do nothing, you tell me, in prayer. But what is what you would like to do there if not what you are doing there, which is present and represent to God your nothingness and your misery? It’s here more beautiful harangue that beggars give us than to expose to our sight their ulcers and necessities. But sometimes still do you none of that, as you tell me, but you dwell there like a ghost and a statue. Well it’s not little more than that. In the palaces of princes and kings, they put statues that only serve to recreate the view of the prince: be satisfied so to serve from this in the presence of God, he will animate this statue when it pleases him. The trees bear fruit only by the presence of the sun, some more early and the others later, some every year and others from three in three, and not always equally. We are blessed- happy to be able to dwell in the presence of God, and let us be satisfied that it will make us bear our fruit either sooner or later, or daily or sometimes, according to his good pleasure to which we must fully resign ourselves. “You do nothing, you tell me, in prayer” . We guess the disappointment of Marie Brûlart who has the impression that nothing is happening while she is praying: is it therefore wasted time ? Wouldn’t she have the right method, an appropriate prayer technique?
What is an object of disappointment for Mme Brûlart, François de Sales makes it a characteristic of the pray. It is not an activity that is added to the others: one does not “say one’s prayers”; we rather let God act in us, as he wills. We are like beggars: we have only our poverty to present to God, and we have everything to receive from him. Prayer is not evaluated according to the criterion of effectiveness; it is a free time. She is simple availability to the action of the Lord. Prayer is presence to God . The existence of the Christian, like that of the whole Church, is nourished by the words left by Jesus to his disciples: ” Behold I am with you for always until the end of the world ” (Mt 28, 20). It is about making ourselves present to God who is always present with us. just stand in the presence of the other, with nothing other than the presence of the loved one: it is the joy of lover. It’s not a matter of method or technique. Prayer is a one-on-one between God and man who love each other. For François de Sales, only those who are incapable to love would be unable to pray. However, Mrs. Brûlart experiences it: prayer is not always carried by feelings that warm the heart. We are sometimes “like a ghost or a statue” inanimate. François de Sales does not despise the feelings that can animate the prayer and make it easy. But he warns: the presence of God is not a feeling; it is an act of faith based on the word of Jesus. Prayer irrigates all of existence . It is impossible to meet God in truth without that, little by little, his presence transforms us. ” Trees bear fruit only by the presence sun ” ; so, ” the presence of God will make us bear fruit sooner or later
“. In many ways, Francis de Sales proposes to let the presence of God reach every moment of life, every activity. At the first visitandines, he said: ” You will be in all your actions in the presence of God if you do them for God. eat, sleep, work for him: it is to be in his presence “. To those who have a lot of activities, he advises to think regularly about the presence of God in the midst of occupations: ” Often think of withdrawing into solitude from your heart while you are in the midst of conversation and business (…). That your heart remains alone in the presence of God alone “. François adds that it is ” in one of the ways safest for spiritual progress “.