| A Type of Desire That Makes the Soul Better |
The following article is taken from Selected Letters of St. Francis de Sales.To prepare for our chat on Sunday, please read the article, which is reproduced below, and review the questions at the end.Click for Living Jesus Chatroom  Photo by James Coleman on UnsplashTo Mere Favre, Superior of the Visitation at Lyons Annecy, 17 April 1616 I have just returned from the Chablais, my very dear daughter, where thanks be to God, I left the Barnabite Fathers established as His Highness, the Prince Cardinal, commanded. Tomorrow I am going on a visit of condolence to Madame de Tournon whose husband (Count of Tournon, Governor of Savoy) has just died, being obliged to do this no less by the relationship between us than by the honor in which I hold the memory of the deceased. This is to explain to you, my very dear daughter, why I am writing to you in haste, though I do want to answer the two questions you put to me some time ago; for I can see that it is hopeless to wait for a better opportunity, since continual pressure of affairs seems to be my fate. My very dear daughter, there are two sorts of good desires: those which increase the grace and the glory of God’s servants, and those which have no effect at all.Desires of the first kind take this form: I should like to give alms, for example, but I do not do it because I have not the wherewithal. And desires like this greatly increase charity and sanctify the soul; thus devout souls desire martyrdom, the ignominy of the cross, which is not, however, within their reach.Desires of the second kind take this form: I should like to give alms, but I do not want to do it. And these desires are not impossible of fulfilment, for nothing stands in their way except cowardice, luke-warmness and lack of resolution; that is why they are useless and do not sanctify the soul or lead to any growth in grace; and so St. Bernard says that hell is full of this kind of desire. It is true that in order to clear up your difficulty completely you must understand that there are desires which seem to belong to the second group but really belong to the first, and similarly the other way round. For example, no servant of God could be without this desire: O how I long to serve God better! Alas! When shall I serve as I ought? And because we can always do better it seems to us that these desires only remain ineffective because we do not try hard enough; but this is not true, for they remain ineffective because of the condition of this mortal life in which it is less easy for us to act than to desire. That is why these desires are as a rule good and make the soul better, kindling and stirring it to progress.But when some specific occasion which we might use presents itself, and if we then stop at our desire without putting it into effect, as when for example we have an opportunity of forgiving an injury, of renouncing our own will in some instance, and we then instead of forgiving or renouncing just say to ourselves: I should like to forgive but I cannot, I should like to give up my own will but it is impossible; very well then, who could fail to see that this sort of desire is empty and even increases my guilt in that I have such a strong impulse to do the right thing and yet do not translate it into action? And desires that take this form seem to belong to the first category but in fact belong to the second. And now I think you will be able to solve your problem without difficulty, though should any remain, do write and tell me about it, and sooner or later I will answer with all my heart, which is indeed all yours, my very dear daughter.Those who are liable to be pursued by unseemly ideas while meditating on the life and death of our Savior should, as far as they are able, simply represent the mysteries to their minds by faith without using their imagination. For example: My Savior is crucified is a proposition of faith; it is enough for me to apprehend this quite simply as a fact of faith without my picturing how his body hung on the cross. And as soon as the wrong kind of pictures want to appear in our imagination, we must dodge our enemy and take our revenge by means of aspirations grounded on faith: O my crucified Jesus, I adore you, I adore your torment, your affliction, your agony! You are my salvation. For you see, my very dear daughter, it would be playing into your enemy’s hands to want to give up meditating on the death and life of our Savior on this account; this is precisely the way in which the enemy tries to deprive us of our greatest happiness. So, what we have to do is to swerve and turn aside, relying on faith alone. God be with you, my very dear daughter, and may we belong to God for ever so as to love him and bless him without end. Reflections: Where do desire come from? Do we have control over them?How do we discern between whether we have good versus bad desires?In another letter St. Francis de Sales says (quoting St. Bernard) that the hell is full of good intentions. How could the good kind of desire turn into these “good intentions”?In our pursuit to do God’s will, we might struggle. In effect, St. Francis asks us to pray, “Lord, I want to want what you want.” How can at least wanting to want something be a good beginning? And what does that even mean?St. Francis says that we must “take our revenge by means of aspirations grounded on faith.” Why is it so important in the Christian life that this be how we battle evil (at least one means)?St. Francis says that some desires cannot be fulfilled, such as those of which we do not have the means. But what about the desires that we can follow through with, such as forgiveness of others, or renouncing our own legitimate desires? Where are we failing due to “cowardice, luke-warmness and lack of resolution”? Sign up for our Living Jesus Chat Room:Come to our Living Jesus Chat Room, 7:30 PM to 8:30 PM Eastern Time |