Saint Francis de Sales

“ Continue to unite yourself more and more with our Lord. Plunge your heart into the charity of his, and say always with your whole soul: “May I die and may Jesus live!” Our death will be a happy one if we have died daily.
43. The repugnance you feel testifies no want of love; for it seems to me that, if we believed that being flayed God would love us more we would flay ourselves, not without repugnance, but in spite of the repugnance. ”

“ He who ardently loves God does not turn back his gaze upon himself to discover what he is doing, but keeps his heart occupied with God, the object of his love. A heavenly chorister takes so much delight in pleasing God, that he desires no pleasure from the melody of his voice, save as it is pleasing to his Sovereign. ”

“ As to exterior actions, we must perform them as best we can, even though it be languidly, heavily, and against our inclinations; and to make them acceptable to Divine Love, we must acknowledge, accept, and cherish the holy abjection of our state. In this way you will change the lead of your languor into gold, and that, too, finer gold than your heart could offer in its brightest and happiest moments. ”

“ Away from me those who love severity, for I will have none of it! It is better to be obliged to account to God for too much gentleness than too much severity. Is not God all love? God the Father is the father of the wretched ”

“ Let us faithfully cultivate that resignation and pure love of God which is never wholly practised but amid sufferings; for to love God, when He feeds us with sweetness is nothing more than children do; but to love Him when He feeds us with gall is to offer Him the cup of our loving fidelity. ”

“ Ah! let us be ever wholly detached from everything before God, taking no trouble for what comes to us. Let all that is not God be as nothing to us. Let us contemplate the infinite goodness of God and forget ourselves. Let us immolate all our affections to Jesus Christ. ”

“ There is a certain simplicity of heart which contains the perfection of all perfections; and it is this simplicity which makes our soul consider God alone, and keep its forces wholly collected within itself, in order to devote itself with all possible fidelity to the observance of his laws, with no wish or desire for anything else. ”

“ It seems to me that I see your heart before me like a dial placed in the sun, which never moves, while its needle and balance are continually in motion, ever turning towards the beautiful planet; for your heart in like manner remains motionless, while your will is continually turning by means of its good desires towards God. ”

“ Paradise is no more pleasing than the miseries of this world, if the divine good pleasure be equally in the miseries as in paradise. Labour is paradise, if the divine will be found in it, and paradise labour, if the divine will be not in it. ”

“ Let our Lord turn us to the left or to the right, and send us in a hundred directions. He never abandons us but to get closer possession of us; He never leaves us but to guard us better; He never struggles with us but to enter our souls and bless us.
119. Courage! Let us keep on in the low valleys of the small and humble virtues. I love these three little 55virtues: gentleness of heart, firmness of mind, and simplicity of life.
120. I recommend to you more than anything else the exercise of holy gentleness and sweetness in all the events of this life. ”

“ To pray is to raise the mind to God and converse with Him concerning our interests with a reverent familiarity, and a confidence greater than has the most petted child in its mother, and to talk with Him of all things both high and low, of the things of heaven and the things of earth; it is to open one’s heart to Him and pour it out unreservedly to Him; it is to tell Him of our labours, our sins, our desires, and all that is in our soul, and to find our rest with Him as we would with a friend. ”

“ Condescending to the humour of others, bearing with rudeness and tiresome manners on the part of our neighbour, victories over our own humours and passions, renouncing our smallest inclinations, efforts against our aversions and repugnances, a continual endeavour to maintain the peace of our soul, a kind and amiable manner of receiving censures upon our condition, our life, our conversation, are all more fruitful to our soul than we can imagine, provided love for God be the motive which animates us. ”

“ Know, then, that all our childishness comes from this: that we forget the maxims of the saints, who warn us that we must act as if we were daily to begin anew the labour of our advancement; we shall not be so much astonished to find miseries and faults to correct in ourselves. The work we have undertaken is never finished; we must continually begin over again with a good heart. ”

“ The whole world is not worth a soul, and a soul is worth nothing without its resolutions. We need not be troubled because we are weak, if by trusting in the power and mercy of God we never lose courage ”

“ You must abide like a poor miserable 140creature before the throne of Divine Mercy, and remain there wholly stripped of all action and of all affection to creatures, and make yourself indifferent to all things.
298. How beautiful it is to renounce esteem of self, to renounce what we are, our own will, all complacency in the creature, and, in short, all of self. We must bury this human self in an eternal abandonment, that we may never more see or know it as we have seen and known it. ”

“ An over-sensitive mind can neither receive nor endure anything without telling of it, and it is always a little astonished at the lowly places which humility and simplicity choose.
18 29. I see you with your vigorous heart which loves and wills powerfully. I like it, for what are those half-dead hearts good for? We must make a particular exercise once every week of willing to love the will of God more tenderly, more affectionately than anything in the world, and that, too, not only in bearable but in the most unbearable events. ”

“ I know the state of your soul very well, and I seem to see it always before me with its little emotions of sadness, surprise, and disquiet—emotions 156which continue to trouble it, because it has not yet cast deep enough the foundations of love of the cross and abjection.
335. No, my dear daughter, it is not necessary to the practice of virtues to be continually mindful of all of them; that would only embarrass your thoughts and your affections. Humility and charity are the mother cords to which all the others are attached: one is the highest, the other the lowest. ”

“ The divine good pleasure is the sovereign object of the detached soul; wherever it sees it, it runs in the odour of its perfumes, unceasingly seeks the places where it most abounds, regardless of all other things. ”

“ It is not tranquillity which brings Him to our hearts, but the fidelity of our love.
60 133. From day to day withdraw your heart from all kinds of amusement and vanity, ... from all that turns you from a blessed eternity.
134. I desire to love God or die; death or love, for life without love is worse than death. ”

“ Cast your thoughts earnestly upon the shoulders of the Saviour, and He will support and strengthen you. When He calls you to a kind of service which is contrary to your taste, your courage should not be less, but rather more than if your taste concurred with his pleasure, for where there is least of self the work goes best. Do not permit your mind to consider itself, its powers, its inclinations. ”

“ There is nothing so sad as to serve a master who knows nothing of our devotion, or who, if he knows it, gives no sign of being satisfied with it; and it must be a strong love which sustains itself alone, unsupported by any pleasure or aspiration. ”

“ But what means this preparation of our heart according to the expression of Holy Writ: “God is greater than our heart, and our heart is greater than the world?” When our heart, in the solitude of meditation, prepares the service which it must render God, it effects marvels. ”

“ The sting of honey-bees is much more dangerous than that of other bees, and so the machinations of friends against us are exceedingly hard to bear; but we must endure them, bear with them, and finally love them as dear contradictions. We must absolutely, invariably, and inviolably desire only God. But the means of serving Him should be the object of a very feeble desire on our part, so that if one means be taken from us we shall not be greatly affected thereby. Our desire for everything which is not God should be very weak and indifferent. ”

“ The great secret in prayer is simply to follow the attractions of the heart. We must go on in good faith and with pure intention to reach God, to love Him, and unite ourselves to Him. True love has little method. ”

“ You always examine too much to discover whence your sadness comes. We must not be so curious as to wish to know the cause of the diversity of states in this life. And in what way shall we show our love for Him who suffered so much for us, if not by patiently enduring aversions, repugnances, and struggles?
295. We must cast our heart among the 139thorns of difficulties, allow it to be transpierced with the lance of contradictions, steeped with gall and vinegar; in a word, feed on absinthe and bitterness, since God wills it. ”

“ With love itself, for they will either not live at all, or they will live upon love.
345. He who would lay up virtues without humility is like one who carries a precious dust in his hand exposed to the wind. The great secret of maintaining true devotion is to have great humility. Be humble and God will be with you. God is pleased to dwell in a heart deepened by humility, docile through simplicity, and great through charity. He who is truly 161humble desires to be humbled. Humility produces generosity. Remember, my dear daughter, that the keenest humiliations are those which are least visible. ”

“ Be just; neither excuse nor accuse your poor soul without due reflection, lest by excusing it without reason you render it insolent, or by lightly accusing it you weaken its courage and make it pusillanimous. ”

“ If what we are doing be necessary, even though it distract our attention from God, we need not be troubled. We are taught to do all our actions for God, and by so doing we keep ourselves in his presence. Beware of thinking it necessary to offer each action to our Lord, for that would interfere with the simplicity of the practice of the Presence of God. ”

“ When we are ill in body we must exact of our minds only acts of submission and acceptance of labour, and acts uniting our will with the good pleasure of God, which acts are formed in the superior part of the soul. ”

“ Our heart must be kind and gentle towards our neighbour, and full of affection for him, particularly when he is wearisome and displeasing to us, for then we find nothing in him to make us love him but respect for our Saviour. ”

“ We must make our imperfections die with us from day to day. Dear imperfections, which cause us to recognise our misery, which exercise us in contempt of self, and the practice 9of virtue, and notwithstanding which God accepts the preparation of our hearts which is perfect.
5. I recommend simplicity to you; look before you, and not at the dangers which you behold in the distance. Keep your will firmly bent upon serving God with your whole heart. While you are thus occupied in forecasting the future you expose yourself to some false step. ”

“ We must endeavour to double, not our desires and our exercises, but the perfection with which we fulfil them, seeking by this means to gain more by one action than we would by a hundred others done according to our inclination and affection. ”

“ As long as we can say, even coldly, God be praised, there is no reason to fear. And do not tell me that it seems to you that you say it in a spiritless way, with no strength or courage, but as if you had to do violence to yourself to utter it. ”

“ Our Lord revealed to Blessed Angela that there is no good so pleasing to Him as that which is done by force; that is, the good which a resolute will effects and offers Him by working against the weight of the flesh, and the repugnances in the inferior part of the soul, and in spite of sadness, aridity, and interior desolation. ”

“ Curiosity, ambition, restlessness, and forgetfulness of the end for which we are in this world are the cause of our having more impediments than works, more bustle than business, more undertakings than results. ”

“ God wishes that, like Job, I should serve Him in the midst of dryness, suffering, and temptation; like St. Paul, that I should serve Him according 29to his desire. You will see that one day He will do all and even more than you can desire.
56. I praise God for the constancy with which you bear tribulations. Nevertheless I still see in you a little over-eagerness and restlessness which form an obstacle to the final effect of your patience.
57. The effect of patience is to possess one’s soul, and, in proportion to our patience do we acquire complete and perfect possession of our soul. ”

“ Thus does it happen in the exercises of sacred love; like deaf choristers we do not hear our own voice, on the contrary, we are oppressed by a thousand fears, and by the uproar which the devil makes about our heart, suggesting that we are not pleasing to our Master, that our love is useless, yea, even false and vain. Oh, my dear Theotime! it is then we must manifest an invincible fidelity to our Saviour, serving Him purely 172for love of his will, not only without pleasure, but in the midst of this deluge of sadness, terrors, alarms, and temptations. ”

“ Let us reject all discourse, research, inquiry; let us become more simple, and be rid of this tiresome care of self; let us confine ourselves to the simple view of God and our own nothingness. Let us steadily lean upon the results 164of the sovereign will, even when we fall, for the dear Jesus will give us the necessary sentiments. O mind, one is never wholly master of thee.... Thou wouldst know all in spite of us. O my God, stop this miserable wanderer!
351. The saints did not abound so much in sensible sentiments, they worked according to the lights and truths of faith. ”