I was reading today from a little book that I bought from Sophia Press a few months back, containing letters written by St. Francis de Sales to various people under his spiritual direction. I knew very little about St. Francis de Sales before buying this book, but I very quickly came to love him. He has a gentle and patient wisdom that is exactly right for a spiritual director, and his words are uplifting in way that reminds me of St. Therese of Lisieux. His tender concern for the souls of his correspondents (most of whom are laypeople) reassures us that we are all, without exception, of interest to God. But at the same time, he tries at every opportunity to relax those neuroses that turn piety, penance and scrupulosity into sources of pride and petty vanity. We are warned not to become too despondent about our imperfections, since they are expected of fallen beings; and yet, we must not become apathetic either, because every day affords us small and humble opportunities to draw closer to God.

“We must hate our faults, but with a tranquil and quiet hate, not with an angry and restless hate; and so we must have patience when we see them, and draw from them the profit of a holy abasement of ourselves. Without this, my child, your imperfections, which you scrutinize so subtly, will trouble you by getting still more subtle, and by this means sustain themselves, as there is nothing that more preserves our weeds than disquietude and eagerness in removing them.”

It is always quite difficult for us to accept the pronouncement that “my grace is enough for you.” We want to go forth with zeal, conquering evil and rooting up sin; instead we are made to be patient and to satisfy ourselves with minor penances and trivial tasks and the promise that all will be made right in the long run. Traditional Catholics, perhaps, have a particularly difficult time with this. We bristle with anger and impatience at everything that is wrong in the world, and especially in the Church, and we are inclined to forget that God has willed for us to suffer whatever trials are put before us.

This leaves us at the center of a perplexing paradox. We must wish with all our hearts for the world as a whole and our souls in particular to be better than they are, and to be made perfect even as the Father is perfect. But at the same time, we must accept willingly, lovingly, and patiently every evil that befalls us, trusting that it will somehow be for the best, because God in his wisdom is apparently pleased to allow these temptations to continue.

Hans Urs von Balthasar writes very profoundly about this same paradox.

“The experience of our sinfulness: how everything that could be pure and pleasing in the sight of God — indeed, even the most innocent and ordinary thing — is vitiated by the breath of unholiness, as when a person who has foul breath exhales it even when he sleeps. Nihil est innoxium ["nothing is harmless", says the Pentecost hymn Veni, sancte Spiritus]. This is how we could understand Luther’s and Kant’s concept of “radical evil.” And yet, it would be a weakness to stop here and not plunge even this thought into God’s grandeur. Here precisely is where we must perceive the opportunity to leap out of ourselves: as when in prayer we recognize, for instance, that no act of pure praise will ever rise from our soul and that the best love it is capable of is still full of egotism and all manner of stains. At such a moment we must awaken in ourselves a longing for the great purifying fire that would of itself consume us so that we might at last adore with all our soul. But at the same time we must perform an act of obedience and continue in this foul pit for as long as God deems it a good thing.”

Notice that Balthasar admits frankly that there is very great evil, both in the world and in ourselves. The place where we labor is a “foul pit,” and we ourselves breathe out unholiness with every breath, but at the same time we must be content to remain here for a time because God wills it. We are almost irresistibly drawn to believe that other people in other places or times have had things better than we; traditional Catholics, for example, like to look longingly back to the 1950’s, or perhaps the 19th century, as though a Catholic paradise existed then from which we have been exiled. But even if we were the most unfortunate people in the history of the Church, we would still need to remember that it is sinful to reject the cup that has been set before us. At times when we find ourselves particularly incensed at the evils within the Church, within our country, or within ourselves, it might be well for us to meditate on these words, and also on those of St. Francis, who goes on to say,

“To be dissatisfied and fret about the world when we must of necessity be in it, is a great temptation. God’s Providence is wiser than we. We fancy that by changing our ships, we shall get on better; yes, if we change ourselves.

My God, I am sworn enemy of these useless, dangerous, and bad desires; for although we desire what is good, the desire is bad, because God does not will us this sort of good, but another, in which He wants us to exercise ourselves. God wishes to speak to us in the thorns and the bush, as He did to Moses; and we want Him to speak in the small wind, gentle and fresh, as He did to Elijah.”

God will not forsake us, however dark the road may become. St. Frances de Sales, pray for us!
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