| Our Lord Is Giving You A Share in His Holy Cross |
At our Living Jesus Chatroom on Sunday we will be talking about the following article, 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  Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee (Public Domain)To a Lady, written around 1610-1611 My dear Daughter, Let us leave meditation for a little while (we are only retreating so as to be able to advance even more rapidly later on), and let us practice that holy resignation and pure love of Our Lord which is never more complete than when we are harassed; for even little children can love God when everything is sugar and sweetness, but loving him when all is wormwood and bitterness is the result of our loving faithfulness. When St. Peter was still crude and unformed, he had plenty of courage to say, ‘May Jesus reign,’ but only his Mother and his faithful lover who was given her as her child were ready to say this on Mount Calvary.I am beseeching God, my dear daughter, to give you this holy patience; and the only thing I can ask of him on your behalf is that he may fashion your heart entirely according to his liking so that he may live and reign there eternally; that he may fashion it, I say, either with a hammer or with a chisel or with the stroke of a brush: it is for him to do as he wills, don’t you agree, my dear daughter? Surely this is the attitude we should take?I know that your pain has increased recently, and my grief about this in the same measure; although together with you I praise and bless Our Lord for showing his divine pleasure in you, giving you a share in his holy cross and crowning you with a crown of thorns.But you are unable, you tell me, to fix your mind on the pain Our Lord suffered for you while you yourself are in the grip of pain. Well, my dear daughter, nor is it necessary that you should; just lift up your heart to your Saviour quite simply as often as you can and make these acts:firstly, accept the pain from his hand as if you yourself saw him laying and putting it upon your head;secondly, offer to suffer even more;thirdly, beg him by the merit of his torments to accept your little ailments in union with the great pain he suffered on the cross;fourthly, assure him that you not only want to suffer but even love and cherish these afflictions as coming from such a kind and gentle hand;fifthly, invoke the martyrs and the many men and women who served God and who now feel great joy in heaven because they were sorely tried in this world. There is no danger in wanting remedies, indeed, you must do your best to obtain them; for God, who sent you the illness is also the author of the healing remedies. So you must make use of them, resigning yourself of course, so that if his Divine Majesty wants the illness to prevail, you acquiesce in this; if he wants the remedy to conquer, you will bless him for it.There is no danger in remaining seated while you are doing your spiritual exercises. None at all, my daughter; and I would say this even in the case of a much slighter indisposition.Oh, my dear daughter, how happy you will be if you remain humble, gentle and supple beneath God’s hand! Oh how I hope that the pain in your head will be of much profit to your heart; your heart, I say, which mine cherishes with a special love. At a time like this, my daughter, more than ever and without illusion, you can show our sweet Saviour that you said and will go on saying, ‘May Jesus reign,’ with all the affection of your heart.May Jesus reign, my daughter, and may he reign over and in your pain, for we can neither reign nor live except by the pain of his death. I am wholly yours in him, Francis, Bishop of Geneva. Reflections: St. Francis mentions how the times of bitterness are the times to prove our true love for the Lord. If this is so, how are we able to love God perfectly in heaven where there is only ever sweetness?Do you think our current go-go-go culture has made the practice of patience even more difficult, even impossible?God gives us freewill, so why is the spiritual life so consumed with surrendering to God and letting Him do whatever He wants/wills? Are we just aiming to become glorified puppets?If God is the author of healing remedies and is the one who sends our illnesses (per St. Francis’s words), does this make God a divine masochist?Life is messy and complicated, how can we better rest peacefully with Jesus when He is asleep through the storms of life?How can we bring ourselves to ask for even more sufferings, and to cherish these afflictions, as St. Francis does in the second and fourth points above?Many Protestant Christians do not teach this approach to suffering. How does the Catholic teaching on this matter expand our endurance of pain and make good of it? Sign up for our Living Jesus Chat Room:Come to our Living Jesus Chat Room, 7:30 PM to 8:30 PM Eastern Time |