Francis de Sales: Strive Above All Else to Keep a Calm and Restful Spirit Thursday, Jan 24 2013

Anxiety of mind is not so much an abstract temptation, as the source whence various temptations arise.

Sadness, when defined, is the mental grief we feel because of our involuntary ailments—whether the evil be exterior, such as poverty, sickness or contempt; or interior, such as ignorance, dryness, depression or temptation.

Directly that the soul is conscious of some such trouble, it is downcast, and so trouble sets in.

Then we at once begin to try to get rid of it, and find means to shake it off; and so far rightly enough, for it is natural to us all to desire good, and shun that which we hold to be evil.

If anyone strives to be delivered from his troubles out of love of God, he will strive patiently, gently, humbly and calmly, looking for deliverance rather to God’s Goodness and Providence than to his own industry or efforts.

But if self-love is the prevailing object he will grow hot and eager in seeking relief, as though all depended more upon himself than upon God. I do not say that the person thinks so, but he acts eagerly as though he did think it.

Then if he does not find what he wants at once, he becomes exceedingly impatient and troubled, which does not mend matters, but on the contrary makes them worse, and so he gets into an unreasonable state of anxiety and distress, till he begins to fancy that there is no cure for his trouble.

Thus you see how a disturbance, which was right at the outset, begets anxiety, and anxiety goes on into an excessive distress, which is exceedingly dangerous.

[...] Just as internal commotions and seditions ruin a commonwealth, and make it incapable of resisting its foreign enemies, so if our heart be disturbed and anxious, it loses power to retain such graces as it has, as well as strength to resist the temptations of the Evil One, who is all the more ready to fish (according to an old proverb) in troubled waters.

Anxiety arises from an unregulated desire to be delivered from any pressing evil, or to obtain some hoped-for good. Nevertheless nothing tends so greatly to enhance the one or retard the other as over-eagerness and anxiety.

Birds that are captured in nets and snares become inextricably entangled therein, because they flutter and struggle so much.

Therefore, whensoever you urgently desire to be delivered from any evil, or to attain some good thing, strive above all else to keep a calm, restful spirit,—steady your judgment and will, and then go quietly and easily after your object, taking all fitting means to attain thereto.

Francis de Sales (1567-1622): Introduction to the Devout Life, 4, 11.

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Peter of Damascus: Reading the Scriptures so as to Become Worthy of God’s Indwelling Friday, Jul 27 2012

Spurious knowledge, or “knowledge falsely so called” (1 Tim. 6:20), is that which a man possesses when he thinks he knows what he has never known.

It is worse than complete ignorance, says St John Chrysostom, in that its  victim will not accept correction from any teacher because he thinks that this worst kind of ignorance is in fact something excellent.

For this reason the fathers say that we ought to search the Scriptures assiduously, in humility and with the counsel of experienced men, learning not merely theoretically but by putting into practice what we read; and that we ought not to inquire at all into what is passed over in silence by Holy Scripture.

Such enquiry is senseless, St Antony the Great tells us, speaking with reference to those who want to know about the future rather than renouncing any claim to such knowledge on the grounds of their unworthiness.

If God in His providence does impart such knowledge, as He did to Nebuchadnezzar (cf. Dan. 2:31-45) and Balaam (cf. Num. 23:8-10), He imparts it for the benefit of all, even if some of the recipients are unworthy of the gift.

[...] We are not told much about these things, lest we search the Scriptures simply – with our minds and then out of pride think that we have grasped something.

For the Lord commands that we should search the Scriptures above all by means of bodily and moral actions, and in this way find eternal life (cf. John 5:39-40).

In particular we should bear in mind that things have been hidden from us for our greater humility, and so that we may not be condemned for sinning knowingly.

The man who has been enabled by grace to acquire spiritual knowledge should struggle to study the divine Scriptures and this knowledge with deep dedication, humility, attention and fear of God;

for unless he does this he will be deprived of his knowledge and threatened with punishment, as unworthy of what God has given him, in the same way as Saul was deprived of his kingdom, as St Maximos explains.

But he who devotes himself to spiritual knowledge and struggles to attain it, St Maximos states, should call upon God at all times, as did David, saying: “Create in me a pure heart, God, and renew an upright Spirit within me” (Ps. 51:10).

In this way he may become worthy of God’s indwelling, like the apostles who received grace “at the third hour” (Acts 2:15).

For the Spirit came down on the apostles, as St Luke declares, at the third hour of the day.

Peter of Damascus (?12th Century): A Treasury of Divine Knowledge  Text from G.E.H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard, and Kallistos Ware (trans. and eds.) The Philokalia: The Complete Text, vol. 3 (Faber & Faber, London & Boston: 1979ff), pp. 191-192.

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Irenaeus of Lyons: The Loving Kindness of God Thursday, Jun 28 2012

God was long-suffering when man became a defaulter, foreseeing that victory which should be granted to him through the Word.

For, when strength was made perfect in weakness, it showed the kindness and transcendent power of God.

He patiently suffered Jonah to be swallowed by the whale not that he should be swallowed up and perish altogether.

Rather, He did this so that, having been cast out again, Jonah might be the more subject to God, and might glorify Him the more who had conferred upon him such an unhoped-for deliverance;

and that he might bring the Ninevites to a lasting repentance, so that they should be converted to the Lord, who would deliver them from death, having been struck with awe by that portent which had been wrought in Jonah’s case.

The Scripture says of them, “And they returned each from his evil way, and the unrighteousness which was in their hands, saying, Who knoweth if God will repent, and turn away His anger from us, and we shall not perish?”

So also, from the beginning, did God permit man to be swallowed up by the great whale, who was the author of transgression.

He did so not that man should perish altogether when so engulfed, but He arranged and prepared the plan of salvation, which was accomplished by the Word, through the sign of Jonah.

[...] This was done that man, receiving an unhoped-for salvation from God, might rise from the dead, and glorify God, and repeat that word which was uttered in prophecy by Jonah:

“I cried by reason of mine affliction to the Lord my God, and He heard me out of the belly of hell.”

And it was done so that he might always continue glorifying God, and giving thanks without ceasing, for that salvation which he has derived from Him: “that no flesh should glory in the Lord’s presence.”

[...] For he Satan thus rendered man more ungrateful towards his Creator, obscured the love which God had towards man, and blinded his mind not to perceive what is worthy of God, comparing himself with, and judging himself equal to, God.

This, therefore, was the object of the long-suffering of God: that man,…learning by experience what is the source of his deliverance, may always live in a state of gratitude to the Lord, and that, having obtained from Him the gift of incorruptibility, he might love Him the more.

For “he to whom more is forgiven, loveth more,” and that he may know himself, how mortal and weak he is.

Irenaeus of Lyons (2nd century AD – c. 202): Adversus Haereses, 3,20, 1-2.

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H.E. Manning: Even Now to Dwell in Heaven, Where All Hearts Are Stayed Wednesday, May 16 2012

Though He should seem to refuse all we ask, He will not refuse to give unto us Himself.

The more you converse with God, the more He will manifest Himself to you.

The very act of prayer will make you familiar with His presence.

Though He be pleased to take from you, one by one, as from His servant Job, all things you cleave to; yet as all other things are withdrawn, He will compass you about with a more sensible presence of His love.

Even as at the last, when there was nothing more to be taken away from the man of many sufferings, the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind;

so from the darkness and perplexity of His providence, there come forth, to those whom God chastens, such tokens of His presence, that they are constrained to say,

“I have heard of Thee with the hearing of the ear;” such was all my past knowledge, hearsay and a dream; “but now mine eye seeth Thee.”

Now all is clear; all stands out before me in full outline and completeness.

So shall it be with those that pray without fainting. By habitual converse with God, they are drawn within the veil through which His providence controls our mortal life.

They rise above it; and their “life is hid with Christ in God. ”Their “conversation is in heaven.”

They begin to see into the hidden meaning of His government over the Church, and of His dealing with themselves; into the secret of the secret, whereby “to principalities and powers in heavenly places is known by the Church the manifold wisdom of God.”

Whatsoever befalls them, they know to be better than they could choose; the best that can be chosen.

[...] To those who are His, all things are not only easy to be borne, but even to be gladly chosen.

All events and changes are the will of God in Christ Jesus. They are also the will of those who have fellowship with Christ, and through Him with God the Father.

Their will is united to that will which moves heaven and earth, which gives laws to angels, and rules the courses of the world.

It is a wonderful gift of God to man, of which we that know so little must needs speak little.

To be at the centre of that motion, where is everlasting rest; to be sheltered in the peace of God; even now to dwell in heaven, where all hearts are stayed, and all hopes fulfilled.

“Thou shalt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee.”

H.E. Cardinal Manning (1808-1892): Sermons, vol. 3, serm. 13 (“A Life of Prayer a Life of Peace”).

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Thomas More: Faithful Trust in the Word and Promise of God Tuesday, May 15 2012

This virtue of faith can no man give himself, nor yet any man to another.

But though men may with preaching be ministers unto God therein; and though a man can, with his own free will, obeying freely the inward inspiration of God, be a weak worker with almighty God therein; yet is the faith indeed the gracious gift of God himself.

For, as St. James saith, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is given from above, descending from the Father of lights.”

Therefore, feeling our faith by many tokens very faint, let us pray to him who giveth it to us, that it may please him to help and increase it.

And let us first say with him in the gospel, “I believe, good Lord, but help thou the lack of my belief.” And afterwards, let us pray with the apostles, “Lord, increase our faith.”

And finally, let us consider, by Christ’s saying unto them, that, if we would not suffer the strength and fervour of our faith to wax lukewarm—or rather key-cold—and lose its vigour by scattering our minds abroad about so many trifling things that we very seldom think of the matters of our faith, we should withdraw our thought from the respect and regard of all worldly fantasies, and so gather our faith together into a little narrow room.

And like the little grain of mustard seed, which is by nature hot, we should set it in the garden of our soul, all weeds being pulled out for the better feeding of our faith.

Then shall it grow, and so spread up in height that the birds—that is, the holy angels of heaven—shall breed in our soul, and bring forth virtues in the branches of our faith.

And then, with the faithful trust that through the true belief of God’s word we shall put in his promise, we shall be well able to command a great mountain of tribulation to void from the place where it stood in our heart, whereas with a very feeble faith and faint, we shall be scantly able to remove a little hillock.

Thomas More (1478-1535): Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation 1, 2.

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Prosper Guéranger: These Fifty Days of Easter Are the Image of Our Eternal Happiness Sunday, Apr 29 2012

Eternity in heaven is the true Pasch: hence, our Pasch here on earth is the feast of feasts, the solemnity of solemnities.

The human race was dead; it was the victim of that sentence, whereby it was condemned to lie mere dust in the tomb; the gates of life were shut against it.

But see! The Son of God rises from his grave and takes possession of eternal life.

Nor is he the only one that is to die no more, for, as the Apostle teaches us, ‘He is the first-born from the dead’(Col. 1:18).

The Church would, therefore, have us consider ourselves as having already risen with our Jesus, and as having already taken possession of eternal life.

The holy Fathers bid us look on these fifty days of Easter as the image of our eternal happiness.

They are days devoted exclusively to joy; every  sort of sadness is forbidden; and the Church cannot speak to her  divine Spouse without joining to her words that glorious cry of  heaven, the Alleluia, wherewith, as the holy Liturgy says, the streets and squares of the heavenly Jerusalem resound without  ceasing.

We have been forbidden the use of this joyous word during the past nine weeks; it behoved us to die with Christ.

But now that we have risen together with him from the tomb, and that we are resolved to die no more that death which kills the soul and caused our Redeemer to die on the cross, we have a right to our Alleluia.

The providence of God, who has established harmony between the visible world and the supernatural work of grace, willed that the Resurrection of our Lord should take place at that particular season of the year when even Nature herself seems to rise from the grave.

The meadows give forth their verdure, the trees resume  their foliage, the birds fill the air with their songs, and the  sun, the type of our triumphant Jesus, pours out his floods of  light on our earth made new by lovely spring.

[...] Speaking, in the Canticle, to the faithful soul, and inviting her to take her part in this new life  which he is now imparting to every creature, our Lord himself says:

‘Arise, my dove, and come! Winter is now past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers have appeared in our land. The voice of the turtle is heard. The fig-tree hath put forth her green figs.  The vines, in flower, yield their sweet smell. Arise thou, and come!’(Song 10:13).

Prosper Guéranger (1805-1875): The Liturgical Year, tr. Dom Laurence Shepherd, O.S.B., Vol. 6, (Newman Pr., Westminster, Md, 1952).

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Irenaeus of Lyons: The Law Was a School of Instruction and a Prophecy of What Was to Come Wednesday, Mar 7 2012

God who stands in need of no one gave communion with himself to those who need him.

[...] By his own hand he gave food in Egypt to those who did not see him. To those who were restless in the desert he gave a law perfectly suited to them.

To those who entered the land of prosperity he gave a worthy inheritance. He killed the fatted calf for those who turned to him as Father, and clothed them with the finest garment.

In so many ways he was training the human race to take part in the harmonious song of salvation.

[...] As the Word passed among all these people he provided help in generous measure for those who were obedient to him, by drawing up a law that was suitable and fitting for every circumstance.

He established a law for the people governing the construction of the tabernacle and the building of the temple, the choice of Levites, the sacrifices, the offerings, the rites of purification and the rest of what belonged to worship.

He himself needs none of these things. He is always filled with all that is good.

Even before Moses existed he had within himself every fragrance of all that is pleasing.

Yet he sought to teach his people, always ready though they were to return to their idols. Through many acts of indulgence he tried to prepare them for perseverance in his service.

He kept calling them to what was primary by means of what was secondary, that is, through foreshadowings to the reality, through things of time to the things of eternity, through things of the flesh to the things of the spirit, through earthly things to the heavenly things.

As he said to Moses: You will fashion all things according to the pattern that you saw on the mountain.

For forty days Moses was engaged in remembering the words of God, the heavenly patterns, the spiritual images, the foreshadowings of what was to come.

Saint Paul says: They drank from the rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ.

After speaking of the things that are in the law he continues: All these things happened to them as symbols: they were written to instruct us, on whom the end of the ages has come.

Through foreshadowings of the future they were learning reverence for God and perseverance in his service.

The law was therefore a school of instruction for them, and a prophecy of what was to come.

Irenaeus of Lyons (2nd century AD – c. 202):Adversus Haereses, Lib. 4, 14, 2-3; 15, 1; from the Office of Readings for Wednesday of the Second Week in Lent @ Crossroads Initiative.  

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Athanasius of Alexandria: Born and Created Anew in the Likeness of God’s Image Sunday, Jul 18 2010

When the likeness painted on a panel has been effaced by stains from without, he whose likeness it is must needs come once more to enable the portrait to be renewed on the same wood.

For, for the sake of his picture, even the mere wood on which it is painted is not thrown away, but the outline is renewed upon it.

In the same way also the most holy Son of the Father, being the Image of the Father, came to our region to renew man once made in His likeness, and find him, as one lost, by the remission of sins.

As He says Himself in the Gospels: “I came to find and to save the lost” (Lk 19:10). Whence He said to the Jews also: “Except a man be born again” (Jn. 3:3,5) not meaning, as they thought, birth from woman, but speaking of the soul born and created anew in the likeness of God’s image.

But since wild idolatry and godlessness occupied the world, and the knowledge of God was hid, whose part was it to teach the world concerning the Father? Man’s, might one say?

[...] Yet where all were smitten and confused in soul from demoniacal deceit, and the vanity of idols, how was it possible for them to win over man’s soul and man’s mind—whereas they cannot even see them? Or how can a man convert what he does not see?

But perhaps one might say creation was enough; but if creation were enough, these great evils would never have come to pass. For creation was there already, and all the same, men were grovelling in the same error concerning God.

Who, then, was needed, save the Word of God, that sees both soul and mind, and that gives movement to all things in creation, and by them makes known the Father?

For He who by His own Providence and ordering of all things was teaching men concerning the Father, He it was that could renew this same teaching as well.

[...] Whence, naturally, willing to profit men, He sojourns here as man, taking to Himself a body like the others, and from things of earth, that is by the works of His body He teaches them.

He teaches them so that they who would not know Him from His Providence and rule over all things, may even from the works done by His actual body know the Word of God which is in the body, and through Him the Father.

Athanasius of Alexandria (c.293-373): On The Incarnation, 14.

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Leo the Great: Today Are We Confirmed as Possessors of Paradise Friday, May 14 2010

Throughout this time which elapsed between the Lord’s resurrection and ascension, God’s providence had this in view: to teach and impress upon both the eyes and hearts of His own people that the Lord Jesus Christ might be acknowledged to have as truly risen, as He was truly born, suffered, and died.

And hence the most blessed Apostles and all the disciples, who had been both bewildered at His death on the cross and backward in believing His resurrection, were so strengthened by the clearness of the truth that when the Lord entered the heights of heaven, not only were they affected with no sadness, but were even filled with great joy.

And truly great and unspeakable was their cause for joy, when in the sight of the holy multitude, above the dignity of all heavenly creatures, the nature of mankind went up, to pass above the angels’ ranks and to rise beyond the archangels’ heights, and to have its uplifting limited by no elevation until, received to sit with the Eternal Father, it should be associated on the throne with His glory, to whose nature it was united in the Son.

Since then Christ’s ascension is our uplifting, and the hope of the body is raised whither the glory of the Head has gone before, let us exult, dearly-beloved, with worthy joy and delight in the loyal paying of thanks.

For today not only are we confirmed as possessors of paradise, but have also in Christ penetrated the heights of heaven, and have gained still greater things through Christ’s unspeakable grace than we had lost through the devil’s malice.

For us, whom our virulent enemy had driven out from the bliss of our first abode, the Son of God has made members of Himself and placed at the right hand of the Father, with Whom He lives and reigns in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever.  Amen.

Leo the Great (c.400-461): Sermon 73, 4.

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H.E. Manning: Follow His Drawings with a Free and Willing Heart Thursday, Mar 25 2010

All of you has He been drawing; and if you look back, you can see the links in the chain by which He has drawn you until now.

A word, a thought, a chance, a sickness, a sorrow, a burden of sadness in the day-time, or a dream of the past in the night-season, alone, or in the throng of men, in your chamber, or at the altar, something pierced deep into your soul, and there abode; and you carried it about like a barbed arrow, which no hand could draw but the same that launched it.

And then He has led you, little by little, with gentle steps, hiding the full length of the way that you must tread, lest you should start aside in fear, and faint for weariness.

And as it has been, so it must be: onward you must go: He will not leave you here: there is yet in store for you more contrition, more devotion, more delight in Him.

A few years hence, and you will see how true these words are. If by that time you have not forsaken Him, you will be nearer still, walking in strange, it may be solitary paths, in ways that are “called desert”; but knowing Him, as now you know Him not, with a fulness of knowledge, and a bowing of heart, and a holy self-renouncement, and a joy that you are altogether His.

What now seems too much, shall then seem all too little; what too nigh, not nigh enough to His awful cross.

How our thoughts change! A few years ago, and you would have thought your present state excessive and severe; you would have shrunk from it then, as at this time you shrink from the hereafter.

But now you look back, and know that all was well. In all your past life you would not have one grief the less, or one joy the more. It is all well; though, when it happened, you knew it not.

[...] Therefore shun all things which may hinder your approach to Him: follow His drawings with a free and willing heart. Though restless and perplexed at first, yield to His mysterious will.

[...] Wait for the end. Men mar their whole destiny in life by prescribing to God’s providence. They either thwart it by outrunning it, or hinder it by hanging back.

What we are to be He has determined, and in due time will reveal it. Your place, your crown, your ministry, in His unseen kingdom, are all marked out for you. He is drawing you towards your everlasting portion.

H.E. Cardinal Manning (1808-1892): Sermons, vol. 1, serm. 19 (“The Hidden Power of Christ’s Passion”)

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