SAINT FRANCOIS DE SALES Doctor of love and evangelical gentleness Founder of the Order of the Visitation 1622-2022 ► 4 th centenary of his death, December 28, 1622 Jubilee Year from January 24 to December 28, 2022. Salesian afternoon, Saturday 18 June. I –
SFS and the meek and humble Heart of Christ
We have heard throughout the week, in different aspects, how Francis de Sales went to the pews of “the school of Jesus meek and humble of heart”. I would just like to notice his docility in welcoming the inspirations of the Holy Spirit and his perseverance. Isn’t it beautiful to have a Word in the heart that transforms us? Do I believe that the Lord can transform me if I offer him my active docility?
O God, if we received the heavenly inspirations to the full extent of their virtue, in a short time we would make great progress in holiness! Francis’ love for the Heart of the “God of the human heart”, for the Heart of Jesus, shines in all his writings.
Impossible in 3 days to make a small presentation; but it is a project that I have wanted for a long time. Just a few quotes that say a lot: “How good is the Lord, how lovable his Heart! Let us follow him into this holy abode. May this Heart always live in our hearts” (L to SCH). “This Heart […] so gracious towards the wretched! Hey! Who would not love this Royal Heart, so paternally maternal towards us! » True God, how the divine heart is in love with our love! (TAD II, 8) “The Son of God is reduced to a cross. And who put it there? Of course it was love. Since it is certain that he died of love for us, the least we should do for him is to live of love…” (EA IX, 40) When I see my Savior on the Mount of Olives, with his soul sad unto death… it cannot be said how much the Savior desires to enter our souls by this love of painful indulgence… So open your heart to me… and I will pour out on you the dew of my Passion which will become pearls of consolation. (TAD V, 5)
Later, those who considered him said: “Jesus modeled the heart of Francis on his own! He made him the sweetest and most humble of all men…” “I don’t know,” says an ancient author, “if there is ever had a saint who practiced more excellently the word of the Saviour: LEARN FROM ME THAT I AM GENTLE AND HUMBLE OF HEART”.
Do we know that Saint Jeanne de Chantal liked to call him: “the child of the Heart of Jesus! Yes, it is also in his life, as in his letters, that it would be appropriate to bring together the manifestations of Francis’ love for “the loving heart of the Saviour”. Remember his student regulations in Padua, for example: he decides to take his rest every day on the heart of Jesus (7th point) and finally to fall asleep in the love of the one and only goodness of my God… (8th point – cf. booklets, p. 36-37)
Of course, the whole Order will be marked by the fire that burned the heart of Francis, starting with the Foundress with an ardent heart, Saint Jeanne de Chantal. And this will be the soil on which the revelations can flourish. from the Heart of Jesus to Saint Margaret Mary, some sixty years later. This is not misplaced pride, but wonder. Yes, the correspondence to the intuitions of the Holy Spirit works wonders! 2 But what the Founder of the Visitation gave as an impetus to his daughters is absolutely no different. of what the Bishop of Geneva proposes TO EACH AND TO ALL those to whom he speaks directly or in his books, his sermons and his letters.
We will therefore first see how this love of the Heart of Christ founded the little congregation, born in Annecy in 1610, then unfolded in the lives of many sisters, before flourishing with Sainte Marguerite Marie in the Church, some 60 years later. Then, Francis will suggest that we enter into the dynamism of the praise of the Heart of Jesus by meditating on a excerpt from the Treatise on the Love of God. Finally, we will be able to exchange in small groups on the way in which this text has reached us.
II – THE HEART OF CHRIST AND THE VISITATION
Here is what François wrote to Mother de Chantal on June 10, 1611: “Hello my very dear daughter, God gave me, this night, the thought that our house of the Visitation is, by its grace, noble enough and considerable enough to have his arms, his motto and his battle cry. So I thought, my dear Mother, if you agree, that we must take for arms, a single heart pierced by two arrows, enclosed in a crown of thorns, this poor heart serving as an enclave for a cross which will surmount it and be engraved with the sacred names of JESUS and MARY. My Daughter, I will tell you at our first meeting a thousand little thoughts that came to me on this subject; because truly our little Congregation is a work of the heart of Jesus and Mary. The dying Savior gave birth to us in the opening of his sacred heart; it is therefore quite right that our heart should remain by a careful mortification, always surrounded by the crown of thorns which remained on the head of our Chief, while love held him fastened to the throne of his mortal sorrows. »
This day is a memorable date in the history of the Visitation of course. But it is also for the history of devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Indeed, in 1611, June 10 fell on the Friday after the octave of the Blessed Sacrament. 63 years later, Jesus will ask, through Saint Margaret Mary, that on that day, Friday in the octave of the Blessed Sacrament be dedicated to a feast of his Heart! Solemnity that we will celebrate next week. There is something to be bowled over! As if the experience of Francis de Sales for the small community of the Visitation, Jesus wanted it to the whole world.
Let the Church know officially that she was a work of the heart of Jesus and Mary; that the Heart of Jesus, pierced by the love of God and the love of man, be the emblem of the Church, works of love from his heart. “Did he have , in this blessed night, the revelation of the great events to come, wonders Mgr. Bougaud? Or does God not choose the Visitation as if to reward it (!) for having taken up arms, from his cradle, this heart crowned with thorns”, when He wanted to offer devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus to sad years of dryness and coldness of Jansenism to come.
From the first years, the divine origin of the Institute and its opportune novelty struck the friends of the Holy, especially those who had followed history from the first days. “This Congregation was still missing from the Church. » By welcoming what the Holy Spirit has placed in his heart, Didn’t God make Francis de Sales a prophet? A year before this “blissful night”, Francis meditates on the gospel of the day: Who remains in me and I in him, it bears much fruit; for without me you can do nothing. He writes to Jeanne de Chantal a month about before the foundation: “It is my opinion that we will no longer remain in ourselves, and that, from the heart, intention and trust, we will lodge forever in the pierced side of the Saviour; because without him, not only we cannot, but when we could, we would not want to do anything. Everything “in him”, everything “by him”, everything “with him”, everything for him, everything him. » (L to SCH, A.R. n°119 p. 292)
The Order of the Visitation is an invitation to live in the Heart of Jesus, their home and a decision! Living with Him, in Him…all things from prayer to relationships, from work to chores… Deciding to live with Him, which I used to do alone. Deciding, in crucial moments, to find our freedom “by passing through the Heart of Jesus” This brings us back to Mass, which he celebrated while meditating on the current Gospel (By you, with you, in you – Amen) and therefore to the fact that linking action and contemplative life concerns everyone! It is an invitation to belong completely to God by living in fullness His presence in the world, in everything. what makes the concrete reality of all life.
“O my daughter, if you look at this heart, it is impossible that you do not like it, for it is such a sweet heart, so suave, so condescending, so in love with puny creatures, provided they recognize their misery, so gracious towards the wretched, so kind towards penitents. Who would not love this royal heart, so paternally maternal towards us? Place this dear heart in the pierced side of the Savior and unite it with this king of all hearts. He thus holds his open door so that everyone can approach it, have an audience. » How wonderful for all! The door of the Lord is forever open to the world.
And in this Jubilee Year, the door of the Lord is always open, it’s up to us to go through it! “…He’s still holding his chest open for that…” Following their Holy Mother of Chantal, the first sisters turned to the Heart of Jesus: Our Blessed Mother had said to them in a meditation: “Our sweet Savior has given to our Order and to each one of us in particular, from her Heart; to put it better, of the virtues that reside there, since it founded our Institute on this principle: “Learn from me that I am meek and humble of heart. » Jesus has chosen us to be the Daughters of his Heart. »
And, in the garden of the Visitation, there was a flowering of souls who dedicated to this Sacred Heart their adoration and their confidence in the simplicity of their life. In Him they find everything. Some of them have been recognized in the glorious procession of the precursors of Marguerite Marie through the centuries.
Sister Anne-Marie Rosset was the first of the daughters of François de Sales to whom Christ showed the treasures of his heart. [..] “We will never part, we will love each other eternally Heart to heart. I will have always care of yourself. »
Sister Anne-Marguerite Clément received a favor from the Heart of Jesus which made her the emulator of Saint Catherine of Siena. On August 25, 1618, she made her profession in Annecy; the next day the Lord appeared to her and said to her: “Your heart is mine, I am his, I have chosen my home there”.
Sister Jeanne-Bénigne Gojos, converse at the monastery of Turin, contemporary of Marguerite Marie. There are so many! You will realize this if you visit our website: “the family album” of the Spirituality of the Sacred Heart tab. You will find the sisters who preceded Saint Marguerite Marie and also those who followed her, up to our seven Martyr Sisters of Madrid during the 1936 revolution. 4
But, no less than these extraordinary favours, the habitual life of the Sisters of the Visitation pointed them out. to the predilections of the Saviour. True daughters of François de Sales, in the spirit of their Institute, they were disciples of the Sacred Heart before becoming its apostles. “The Sisters of the Visitation who will be so happy that they observe their Rules well will truly be able to bear the name of Evangelical Daughters, established (in this last century) to be imitators of Gentleness and the Humility of the Heart of Jesus, base and foundation of their order, which will give them the privilege and the grace incomparable to bear the quality of Daughters of the Heart of Jesus. » Thus a whole line of privileged Visitandines of the Heart of Jesus announced and prepared, like the dawn precedes the day, the Girl chosen to be “The beloved disciple of the Heart of Jesus”, “The Treasurer of the of Jesus”; the “Messenger and Apostle of his Heart”. Saint Margaret Mary.
Sixty eight years have passed since the Foundation of the Visitation and behold the Savior Himself confirms the special vocation of this Institute by giving it his Heart and calling it to work for his glory. We cannot go into the details of the revelations that Jesus made to her or of the mission that he entrusted to her. But the month of the Sacred Heart is a great moment of grace for whoever would like to look into it. While we welcome the relics of Saint Francis de Sales, see how the visionary of the Sacred Heart, who died at the age of 43, October 17, 1690, is a true daughter of Saint Francis de Sales. Despite everything that, apparently, may seem contradictory, Marguerite-Marie has so deeply assimilated the doctrine of her Founder, she applied herself so much to passing it on throughout her life that she ends up talking like him. If she does not use the same words, they are at least the same truths that she proclaims. Better than that: we know that what she said, she began by doing it herself, imitation of his Father and of Him of whom it is said in the Acts of the Apostles: “Jesus did and taught”.
/ Let us see what concerns conformity to the will of God which Francis de Sales worshiped. In all his writings (notably in books VIII and IX of the TLG), he explains that the divine Will is the supreme reason of everything, the great mistress of our life, the principle of value of our actions… that we must accomplish out of love, in all circumstances, without anxiety and without reserve, with promptness and abandonment”. He explains it and he does it himself, as Mother de Chantal will testify: “I say that I clearly knew that our Blessed had an entire resignation to the good pleasure of God. It depended absolutely and without no reservations. He said that anything that happened to him would never take away his very resolute resolution that he had to acquiesce fully in all that God would want to do with him and with all that belonged…
” There are plenty of examples in her life: when Mother de Chantal fell so seriously ill at the beginning of the Foundation and during all the vagaries of the beginning, in particular the modification of the Constitutions, during the work, the death of his little sister Jeanne, of his mother, etc. The writings of St. Marguerite Marie will not give another tone: “The Saint herself writes in her Vow of Perfection: “I will take continual care to conform and submit my will to that of my Sovereign in all things”. (V&O II, 202) It was the great fund that she established in her novices that a perfect adherence to the will of God were to be the rule of all their actions. “Try always to walk in the freedom of the children of 5 God, conforming and uniting you to his holy love, to his holy will in which you must do die to yours to have only one will and no will without him. (Ibid. II, 667) “In truth, it seems to me that all the happiness of a soul consists in conforming to this most adorable will because that is where our heart finds its peace, our spirit its joy and rest. And I believe it’s true means of doing our will, for his loving goodness delights in satisfying those where he finds no resistance “. (Ibid. II, 265)
Looking at the whole life of Marguerite Marie, one could say that it is only conformity to the will of God, as was his Blessed Father. For one as for the other, it was only a response to the almighty attraction of the love of the heart of God to the depths of their own heart.
2/ Humility and gentleness Still in the depositions of Mother de Chantal on her Blessed Father: “His humility was cordial, noble, genuine and solid, which made him utterly indifferent to honor or contempt ; he had very low self-esteem…” (SCH III, 151) “I say that the sweetness of our Blessed Father was incomparable and it is true… I do not think that one can express the great sweetness and good-naturedness which God had poured into his soul; he said that the spirit of meekness was the true spirit of Christians. // He told me once that he had been careful for three years to acquire that holy virtue which made him condescending to all, and caused him to give to his neighbor his person, his means, his affections, so that each may use them according to his needs. (Ibid. III, 167)
And Marguerite-Marie? Many testimonies of her contemporaries speak to us of her humility towards God and towards others. Her humility did only one thing in her with gentleness: In the Procedure of 1715 we read: “The Servant of God also loved her enemies and did as much good as possible to all those who hurt her and it was enough to have procured her some humiliation and mortification to attract her prayers and the particular testimonies of her friendship…”
“The Servant of God was very humble so that she called herself nothing; she wanted to appear vile; she rejoiced at being despised; she submitted to everyone, bearing with great sweetness the insults that were inflicted on her; she never showed any impatience or anger…” (Ibid. I, 469-470) Yes, it is the soul of a saint! And a real spiritual daughter of the Doctor of Love!
Extraordinary ways? “God frequently granted extraordinary graces to the first Visitandines. The two Founders then pleaded with God the Father to hide their daughters in Him with Jesus Christ, His Son. crucified. During the mass said for this intention, Jeanne de Chantal had a very great and an interior certainty: the Most Holy Trinity had heard their prayers. (The divine Goodness had their request very pleasant and granted them a great gift of hidden and suffering interior life lovingly with Jesus Christ on the cross. And that immense liberality would take nothing away from the graces prepared for souls who would be faithful to him in this little Congregation, but that they would be, like the graces of the Son of God, hidden in God and their manifestation for eternity.) That if, in a few souls, something appeared and if some wonders were done, it would be in tribute and report of the TRANSFIGURATION and miraculous works of OUR SAVIOR JESUS. »
Saint Marguerite Marie, without a doubt, is one of these “wonders”! 6
III – THE HEART OF CHRIST AND US… YOU AND ME
From revelation to revelation, Jesus delivered to Margaret Mary the message of love from his Heart. But she didn’t have the pretension to innovate! Devotion to the Heart of Jesus is as young as the Gospel: “We have known love that God has for us, and we believed in it” wrote Saint John to the first communities Christians, and Paul surrounded his fellow Christians “with the tenderness of the Heart of Christ”. To be a Christian is to enter into the dynamics of this Love of God who first loved us and who awaits in return the response of a free and generous love. And the dynamism of this revelation continues to register in history, since the 1st centuries but in an ever new way.
And to take just one example, the message of the Heart of Christ prepares that of Divine Mercy which, reciprocally makes it explicit, on the plane of Salvation, of Redemption through Love. But the two messages are intrinsically linked. (see Note, John Paul II: Dives in misericordia, 1980, §13)
PRESENTATION OF THE TEXT proposed for our meditation for our fraternal exchanges.
By continuing to meditate on this marvelous reality of the complementarity of mysteries and revelations, certain expressions or certain passages of Saint Francis de Sales have taken on new meaning for me. In particular: the final of the 11th chapter of book V Treatise on the Love of God, so famous that we know almost by heart. In closing, I just thought I’d introduce it to you to make it easier to get started.
. Of course, this extract is to be placed in the context of Book V. It is about the general manifestations of love: complacency and benevolence. This is expressed by praise to Him to whom we do not may want no good that he does not already have. But the praise of all his creatures always leaves the heart that desires to praise God as much as it deserves. At the beginning of ch.11, after having met and heard, “the voice” of the Blessed Virgin Mary whom the King himself invites to sing, his heart pressed with the desire to praise God for his infinity, then invites the Savior himself to glorify his eternal Father. (Here we are touching pinpoint the role of desire in our hearts…) Then the spirit arrives in a place of silence… to contemplate the Beloved, with the heart of the beloved of the Song…
Francis explains the divine quality of the praise of the Redeemer, true man and true God. His praise is infinite! We hear it, then we listen and we find a certain infinity of merit, value, sweetness… savored in the Spirit. The beloved is awakened from a deep sleep and delighted! And this is the spring of the Song of Songs! His praise reveals that he, the Beloved, wants and can penetrate the Beauty he wants to praise because HE LOVES, and infinitely the melody of the glory and praise of his Father more than all… What moves this praise of the Son, it is his love, the love of the Son for his Father! (It made me think of that supreme love of Christ who gathers the praise of the universal Church in himself to present it to the Father in the unfolding of the liturgical cycle, as in each time of prayer.) And here is where our passage begins: T.LG, 11 Francis continues to spin the metaphor of the Song…
7 THE DIVINE LOVE OF THE WELL-LOVED behind the wall of his humanity… “… Look, there it is, this divine love of the Beloved, as it is behind the wall of its humanity; see how he reveals himself through the wounds of his body and the opening of side, as by windows, and as by a trellis through which he looked. Yes, certainly, Theotimus, divine love seated on the heart of the Savior as on his throne royal, look through the slit of his pierced side all the hearts of the children of men; because this heart, being the King of hearts, always keeps its eyes on hearts. But as those who look through the lattices see and are only glimpsed, so the divine love of this heart, or rather this heart of divine love, always sees clearly ours and looks at them with the eyes of his delight, but we do not see him yet, only we glimpse it: for, O God! If we saw him as he is, we would die of love for him since we are mortal, as he himself died for us while he was mortal and as he would still die of it, if now he were not immortal. O if we could hear this divine heart as it sings with a voice of infinite sweetness the canticle of praise to the Divinity, what joy, Theotimus, what efforts of our hearts to launch to Heaven so that you may always hear it! He urges us there certainly, this dear Friend of our souls: Get up, he said, get out of yourself, take flight towards me, my dove, my very beautiful, in this celestial abode where all things are in joy and breathe only praise and blessings. Everything blooms there, everything spreads sweetness and perfume: the doves, which are the darkest of all birds, yet their warbling resounds there. Come my beloved dear, and to see me more clearly, come to the same windows through which I look at you, come and consider my heart in the cave of the opening of my side, which was made when my body, like a house reduced to hovel, was so pitifully demolished on the tree of the Cross. Come and show me your face: hey, I see it now without you showing it to me; but then and I will see it and you will show it to me, for you will see that I see you. Make me listen to your voice, because I want it to combine with mine; so your face will be beautiful and your voice very pleasant. O what sweetness to our hearts when our voices, united and mingled with that of the Saviour, will participate in the infinite sweetness of the praises that this beloved Son renders to his Father eternal ! » . We are invited to consider carefully, to contemplate Jesus, the Son who took flesh (cf. TLG II, 2), passed through the Passion, the crucifixion, through his glorious resurrection. And now he is watching us! “The divine love of the Beloved”, of course, is that of Jesus, but who is true man and true God! It is therefore also that of the Word, united to the Father in the Spirit, in all his mysteries.
8 Applied to that of the Heart of Christ by the teaching of the Church and the contemplation of all lovers of Christ, here we are drawn to the Burning Bush which burns in the heart of the “beloved Son”, at the “center of his person”! (Let us also think of our baptized hearts united to Christ…) I seem to see this Merciful Love of God, One and Triune, as Creator, Father and Beloved Husband, prancing over hill and dale through the whole history of Revelation, behind the wall of the humanity of Jesus and of his heart so that we can glimpse the secrets of his love through the wounds of his body and the opening of his side. From there we look, says Francis, for whom the Song of Songs recapitulates, in the symbolic mode, the mystery of Salvation and of the Church.
This same “divine love”, one and triune, in the depths of the love of the Son, “is seated on the heart of the Saviour” and “looks through the slit of the pierced side of Jesus to all hearts”… He invites us to see, listen, taste how far the infinite love of God goes for man. In the back and forth of the following passage, between the actions of “seeing and “glimpsing”, “being seen” and “to be glimpsed”, let us not forget that Francis, in the Treatise, spoke of faith with these same verbs see and glimpse.
Beyond François’ taste for inversions, I like not to go too quickly and leave the intention that is often hidden there. Here, “the divine love of this heart, or rather the heart of this divine love”, welcoming it as an echo of what we have evoked previously, what is hidden opens onto an infinity… (Invitation to much more time and prayer.) Let us also think of the excess of love revealed by the Sacred Heart to Marguerite Marie, in the fresco of Paray, to the symbolic drawing of the first image of the S.C. made)
Then, “this divine heart”, true man and true God, sings the canticle of praise to the divinity… What joy, what efforts… he urges us to “Go on, get up!…”! And it is we who are put in motion! It is no longer us who invite him to rent, as before. It is Jesus who invites us. And then there comes the call of the Beloved to the “dearly beloved”: to see me more clearly (instead of just glimpsing myself) come to the same windows through which I look at you, to the openings of my wounds and my heart – which are the marks of his love! come consider my heart… “Come and show me your face”: It is Jesus himself who invites us to this wedding song eternal! The beloved gives herself up and we come to the exchange of looks: see and be seen; to see that I am seen, to know it and to make it known; to love and be loved ; know that I am loved and let it be known that I love. Allied with mine, your voice will be pleasant, and your face will be beautiful.
9 Yes, it’s a wedding ring! Every vocation is of union, of UNION! This is what God intends us to do. This is the will of God! And what sweetness to our hearts united to that of the beloved Son to become in him and with him, praise to “our” eternal Father!
The Wounds of the Body of Christ and His Heart, are the place of the height of praise, at the height of loving-kindness. We are here at the heart of the Gospel: pass from the Passion-Resurrection to the Ascension, until Pentecost through the Heart of the Redeemer, not only brings us into the communion of Trinitarian praise, but still gives us to be washed, purified. Our gaze on all Creation can bring us into the praise of the sons of God! The meditation of chapter 11 of Book V of the Treatise as well as, initially, the insights into the life and writings of Francis de Sales and their unfolding in the life of Visitandines, gave us to perceive the soil in which will take root shortly after “the devotion” to the Heart of Christ
. ֍ NOTE: Saint John Paul II, Dives in Misericordia, 1980, § 13 “The Church seems to profess and venerate in a particular way the mercy of God, when she addresses in the Heart of Christ. Indeed, drawing near to Christ in the mystery of His Heart allows us to dwell on this point – central point in a certain sense, and at the same time the most accessible on a human level – of the revelation of the merciful love of the Father which constituted the central content of the messianic mission of the Son of the man. » Personal Note: It would take a much more in-depth and exhaustive study – which is beyond me – to see more precisely how the Doctor of Love reveals the source of the mystery of Salvation in the wound symbolic of the heart of the God of Mercy (TAD II in particular) in the depths of the Heart of Christ (Cf TAD VII, 8; X, 17…)
Source: Visitation Monastery, Tarascon
SFS-et-le-Sacre-Coeur.pdf (visitation-tarascon.com)
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