| Look Towards the Place Which We Would Like to Reach, But Always Look Straight Ahead |
At our Living Jesus Chat Room this Sunday we will be talking about a letter written by Francis de Sales to St. Jane de Chantal, written from Cluses, 6 August 1606, 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  Photo by Mateus Campos Felipe on UnsplashFinding yourself absorbed in the hope and idea of entering religion, you are afraid of having offended against obedience. No, I did not tell you not to hope for it and think of it, but only not to linger over such thoughts and indulge in them; because quite certainly nothing so much hinders us from reaching perfection in our own vocation as longing for another. Instead of tilling the field in which we find ourselves, we send our plough and oxen elsewhere, into our neighbor’s field, where of course we cannot reap any harvest this year. And all this is a waste of time, and when our thoughts and hopes face in another direction it is impossible for us to set our heart steadily on the virtues required in the place in which we find ourselves. No, my daughter, Jacob never really loved Leah while he was longing for Rachel; cherish this maxim, for it is very true. But you see, I am not saying that you are not to think and hope, only that you are not to pursue such ideas or let yourself dwell on them too much. We are allowed to look towards the place which we would like to reach, but on condition that we always look straight ahead. Believe me, the Israelites could never sing in Babylon because they were thinking of their own country; and what I think is that we should be able to sing everywhere and anywhere ….Keep yourself wholly resigned in Our Lord’s hands, my daughter; give him the remaining years of your life, and beg him to use them for whatever kind of life is most pleasing to him. Do not allow your mind to be preoccupied with a vain promise of tranquility, delight, merit; but hold up your heart to your spouse, completely empty of all affections other than his chaste love, and beg him to fill it purely and simply with the inclinations, desires and wishes which are in his own heart, so that like a pearl oyster your heart only conceives by the dew of heaven and not by the waters of the world; and you will see that God will help us and that we shall do well, choosing rightly and putting our ideas into effect ….I cannot think of anything else to say to you about your apprehension of your particular trouble, nor of the fear of being impatient in bearing it. Did I not tell you the first time I spoke to you about your soul that you pay too much attention to what tempts or afflicts you; that you should only consider it grosso modo; that women, and sometimes men too, reflect too much about their troubles and that this entangles thoughts and fears and desires, which then so constrict the soul that it cannot free itself. I entreat you, my daughter, don’t be afraid of God for surely he doesn’t want to hurt or harm you; love him very much for he wants to do you a great deal of good. Carry on quite simply in the shelter of our resolutions and reject your reflections about your trouble as a cruel temptation. What can I say to stop the flux of these thoughts in your heart? Do not strive to heal yourself of them, for such anxious striving would make your heart more sick. Do not struggle to overcome your temptations, for this effort would strengthen them; simply despise them and do not dwell on them. Fix your mind on Jesus crucified. What else are you looking for on earth except God? And him you have. Keep firm in your resolutions; stay in the little boat in which I have launched you; come storm, come tempest, may Jesus reign in you, and indeed you will not perish. He will be asleep, but in his own good time and place he will waken so as to restore your calm.My dear St. Peter, as the scriptures say, seeing that the storm was raging, was afraid; and as soon as he was afraid, he began to sink and to drown, so he cried out: ‘O Lord, save me.’ And Our Lord caught hold of his hand and said to him: ‘O thou of little faith, why didst thou doubt ?’ Look at this holy apostle; he walks dry foot on the water, the waves and the winds could not make him sink; but fear of the wind and the waves will make him perish unless his master saves him. Fear is a greater evil than the evil itself. O daughter of little faith, what do you fear? No, do not be afraid; you are walking on the sea, surrounded by wind and water, but you are with Jesus: so what is there to fear? But if terror seizes you, cry out loudly: O Lord, save me. He will stretch forth his hand towards you; clasp it tight and go joyfully on your way.In short, don’t philosophize about your trouble, don’t argue with it, just go straight on, quite simply. No, God would not allow you to be lost while you live according to our resolutions so as not to lose him. If the whole world turns topsy-turvy, if all around is darkness and smoke and din, yet God is still with us. But if we know that God lives in the darkness and on Mount Sinai which is full of smoke and surrounded with the roar of thunder and lightning, shall not all be well with us as long as we keep close to him? So live, live, my dear daughter, live wholly in God, and do not fear death. Jesus in his goodness is all ours; let us be all his. Our most honored Lady Abbess has given him to us; let us cling to him. Courage! my daughter. I am infinitely yours, and more than yours. Francis, Bishop of Geneva. Reflections: How do we balance between desiring something but not inordinately?Religious life is a “higher” calling than marriage simply because it reflects how we will be in heaven. Then why would it be wrong for a married person to hope for and long for religious life?How do we truly discover what God is asking of us, what He is “calling us to”?Saint Francis says, “don’t be afraid of God,” and yet we know from scripture that the “fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” What’s the difference here?Why would Saint Francis tell Saint Jane to “not struggle to overcome your temptations”?What can a single person do to avoid getting too caught up in desiring to get married or join a religious order or a celibate community? Or an older person looking forward to retirement? 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