Today is St Francis de Sales' feast day. He is one of the saints that is important to our family -- a favorite of mine, and the confirmation patron of one of my sons. If we are talking about eucatastrophe, which we are as the operating idea of this blog, his life is a good historical example.
Born in the half century after Christian Europe was split into conflict between Catholics and Protestants, he was two months premature, the oldest of six sons. In those days of high infant mortality, his very survival seems like one of the first "turns" (eucatastrophe means sudden turn with a view to the happy nature of the turn).
Then there was the fact that he was trained as a lawyer, and became a priest against the desire of his father.
Then the prodigious work he did in a relatively short lifetime (55 years if my math is correct). His focus was on "devotion" whatever your state of life and he was especially gifted in gentle but lucid persuasion. His letters of spiritual direction have survived as classics along with his book, Introduction to the Devout Life; both were largely written for the layman or woman. If you have previously thought that the age of the laity and the universal call to holiness originated with the Vatican II Council, you might think St Francis de Sales must be one of the council periti. And I suppose in a way he was, spiritually at least. I would call devotion and holiness similar terms. Devotion is the practice of the pursuit of holiness. Holiness is the part that we can't do on our own; we can do our best to prepare the soil but God gives the increase.
From today's Universalis:
St Francis taught that we can all attain a devout and spiritual life, whatever our position in society: holiness is not reserved for monks and hermits alone. He wrote that “religious devotion does not destroy: it perfects,” and his spiritual counsel is dedicated to making people more holy by making them more themselves. In his preaching against Calvinism he was driven by love rather than a desire to win: so much so, that it was a Calvinist minister who said “if we honoured anyone as a saint, I know of no-one since the days of the Apostles more worthy of it than this man.”
St Francis is the patron saint of writers and journalists, who would do well to imitate his love and his moderation: as he said, “whoever wants to preach effectively must preach with love.”
As relevant today as in his own polarized and controversial time, right?
This verse, also from today's Office, seems to sum up St Francis de Sales' operating principle.... obviously in emulation of the primary Source of wisdom:
Wisdom 7:13-14
What I learned without self-interest, I pass on without reserve; I do not intend to hide her riches. For she is an inexhaustible treasure to men, and those who acquire her win God’s friendship, commended as they are to him by the benefits of her teaching.
That is a reminder that truth, ordered and communicated rightly -- that is, wisdom -- is a treasure beyond price. But it is a gift, not bought and sold.
In that way, truth is not so different from love and the Good. From Introduction to the Devout Life:
...in no way does true devotion, my Philothea, destroy anything at all. On the contrary, it perfects and fulfils all things. In fact if it ever works against, or is inimical to, anyone’s legitimate station and calling, then it is very definitely false devotion.
The bee collects honey from flowers in such a way as to do the least damage or destruction to them, and he leaves them whole, undamaged and fresh, just as he found them. True devotion does still better. Not only does it not injure any sort of calling or occupation, it even embellishes and enhances it.
Moreover, just as every sort of gem, cast in honey, becomes brighter and more sparkling, each according to its colour, so each person becomes more acceptable and fitting in his own vocation when he sets his vocation in the context of devotion.
To extend his metaphor of the bee, as the bee not only leaves the flower unharmed but actually gives it the means to reproduce by carrying its pollen to other flowers, devotion bears fruit.
I would say this is an element of the idea of "eucatastrophe" -- in Tolkein's formulation, it is the habit of good things previously lined up to overset or reverse the bad outcome that seems inevitable. It is a kind of fruitfulness that doesn't always make sense in secular terms. Truth and love eschew the weapons that seem strong in order to leave space for the flourishing of things less obviously strong, that have their own interior organic principle. Art and music and architecture are as much about the spaces in time and place as about the presences; and the same can be said about how a lot of non-technical, non-active things work. Not that action and production are not important, just that they are not the crucial part of what goes on.
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