| Do Not Let Your Mind Get Tangled Up in Cobwebs |
At our Living Jesus Chat Room this Sunday we will be talking about a letter written from St. Francis de Sales to Barbe-Marie Le Blanc de Mions, wife of the president of the parliament of the Dauphine at Grenoble, written from Annecy on April 26, 1617, taken from Selected Letters of St. Francis de Sales.To prepare for our chat, please read the article, which is reproduced below, and review the questions at the end.Click for Living Jesus Chatroom  “Be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48)Carl Bloch, The Sermon on the Mount (Public Domain)This is in reply to your letter of the 14th, my very dear daughter. Tell dear Barbe-Marie [St. Francis is referring to her] who loves me so much and whom I love still more, that she can talk freely about God wherever she thinks this may be useful, cheerfully giving up any fear of what those who are listening may think or say about her. In short, I have already told her that she should not say or do anything so as to win praise, nor yet leave anything undone or unsaid for fear of being praised.And one is not hypocritical if one’s actions are not as good as one’s words; for goodness me, where on earth should we be? I should have to be silent for fear of being a hypocrite, because if I were to talk about perfection it would mean that I considered myself perfect. No indeed, my very dear daughter, I don’t think I am perfect because I talk about perfection any more than I think I am an Italian because I talk Italian; but I think I know the language of perfection because I have learnt it from people to whom I have talked and who really knew the language.Tell her to powder her hair, since her intention is upright; for speculations on this sort of topic are idle. Do not let your mind get tangled up in these cobwebs. Barbe-Marie’s mental hair is even more unruly than the hair on her head and that is why it gets tied up in knots. She must not be so fussy and waste her energy on little details which Our Lord does not worry about. Do tell her to go on in good faith, keeping to the middle way of the lovable virtues of simplicity and humility, and not rushing to extremes with so many subtle arguments and considerations. Let her boldly powder her hair; don’t pheasants, those pretty birds, powder and dust their plumage so as not to risk getting lice?Tell her to pray either by using points of meditation, as we agreed, or as she used to pray, it doesn’t matter which; we seem to remember telling her that she should only prepare the points and try to keep to them at the beginning; if she relished meditation it was a sign that this was the method she was to follow, at any rate for the moment. If, however, God’s sweet presence occupied her later on, she was to yield to it and to the colloquy she makes by God’s own power, there being nothing wrong with this as it is described in your letter; all the same, she must sometimes talk in her own person to this great All, as though desiring her own nothingness to do something. Since you read my books, I will add nothing further, except to tell you to go on your way simply, straightforwardly, openly and with a child’s naivete, sometimes carried in your Father’s arms, sometimes led by his hand …. I am very happy that my books have found a welcome in your mind which was brave enough to think it could get along all on its own; but are they not your father’s books? And you the dear daughter of his heart, by God’s grace, to whom be honor and glory forever …. Reflections:If we do successful things or laudable things, we could be praised for them, but how do we avoid doing those things for the sake of being praised? Or how do we not allow ourselves to be consumed by the praise we do end up receiving?How is it that imperfect people are allowed to guide people in the way of perfection?How can we embrace the idea that we are all disciples (students) of Jesus? Remembering that we are on an endless journey of learning.How can we obtain a stronger interior life? What are the “points of meditation” that St. Francis mentions? And what exactly is the interior life?What does it mean to be in the presence of God? Aren’t we always in the presence of God? Sign up for our Living Jesus Chat Room:Come to our Living Jesus Chat Room, 7:30 PM to 8:30 PM Eastern Time |