April 17, 2011 by The Rev. Howard Seip
In 1610, Francis de Sales proclaimed the following in his first major book, “Be conscious of the love with which Jesus Christ, our Lord, suffered so much in this world. You were the object of this love. Remember, the heart of our Lord saw your heart, and loved you surely from the tree of the cross. By this love he obtained for you all the good things that you will ever have. His divine goodness has prepared in his love and mercy all the means for our salvation. This loving heart of God thought of us, loved us, and obtained for us a thousand means of salvation. How much then should we love, cherish, and make good use of all this for our benefit! Imprint this on your spirit.”
As we gather here for worship today, with all of the hustle and bustle and joyous celebration of Palm Sunday, and with all of the quiet and painful and somber reflection of the reading of Christ’s Passion, if we are thoughtful and wonder what the meaning of this day is for us with all of its contradictory thoughts and feelings, I think that we could do no better than to internalize what Francis de Sales is saying to us. For he is saying that this whole life and passion of Christ that we participate in is a picture to us of God’s loving care for us and God’s desire for our salvation and new life. And perhaps more than that, he says that it is a call to us to respond and reach out to God in love and wonder and to grow into new life because of that. In the cross God reaches out to us in love, and in seeing it, we reach back in our own love and are transformed by it.
I want us to spend a little time with Francis de Sales this morning because he was the focus of my reading and meditation during this Lenten season, and as I have suggested in my quote from him, I think that he can guide us to the meaning of our worship celebration today. But I also think that he can give us practical guidance in living our Christian lives right here and now. Because Francis was committed to preaching the truth that the spiritual life of seeking God is something that is the calling of every Christian person and the heart of our life in the church. He lived in a day, somewhat like our own, in which people thought that serious religious life was just for professionals like priests and nuns, and not for the ordinary person in the pew. But Francis saw that the life of faith with God was for everyone, and was something relevant to our real lives everyday in this world. It wasn’t just some heavenly vision or something just in a monastery.
That means that he is calling us to a life in the church that goes beyond what it ordinarily can be. There is a spiritual reality beyond the politics, the business meetings, the problems and personal conflicts, and the trivia that can so dominate and choke up our lives in the church. And he not only calls us to that spiritual life, he also clearly identifies what it is. For, he says, it is nothing beyond two simple, but terribly important things – an inner transformation of our hearts and spirits by a devotion that is nothing other than a sincere and true love of God. He is utterly convinced that we will never find the true fulfillment of our lives or their deepest meaning until we let go of the surface things of life and seek a true inner transformation of our hearts and spirits by seeking to love God with all of our hearts and minds.
And for Francis as a Christian leader and member of the church, that search for God and making God real in our lives focuses on the person of Jesus Christ whose life is at the heart of our worship today. In fact, de Sales had a very short motto that summarized his whole approach to the spiritual life. And that motto was “Live Jesus”. Live Jesus. He wanted to see us grow in our hearts of devotion until we get to the point where we are so close to Christ in our lives that we have a sense of him living in our hearts and spirits so that we could live a life of love as he did.
But how do you do that? After calling us to the spiritual life, and then giving us a sense of what it is and its meaning, he also gives us practical advice about just how then we go about beginning that process in our lives and cultivating and growing it. In the course of his major works, he has many suggestions that cover many hundreds of pages, but for him, the central thing is prayer. But not just prayer in the sense that we usually think of it as prayers for ourselves or for others like we have in the prayers of the people each week. He believes that we will really be able to enter into the spiritual life and begin to transform our hearts so that we can be close to God by meditation and contemplation. Meditation and contemplation.
Now those long, fancy words are just technical terms for two really quite simple notions. Francis wants us to come close to God by entering into the stories of Christ through our imagination and make them ours so that we can gradually identify ourselves with Christ and grow closer to him with devotion and affection. That is the process of meditation, and our stories of Christ’s entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, or the story of his Passion with all of its profound elements are good examples of ones to use to do this. Contemplation on the other hand is a form of prayer that is simpler, less imaginative and connected with words, that is a prayer of simple being in God’s presence and attentiveness to God’s loving reality in silence and solitude that is done to awaken us to our closeness to God.
That still might seem like a hard thing for us busy people to do all by ourselves. So after encouraging us to pursue this spiritual life of devotion that would bring us to love God and to live close to Jesus, Francis declares that this is actually something that is really possible for us and can become a reality in our lives. It is no mere dream of fantasy. For he is convinced that God is alive and working in our lives through grace and love to make these things a possibility. And he uses a delightful and strikingly contemporary image to get his point across and help us to see that we are not alone in the world in our spiritual struggles but are accompanied by a divine presence that is active and gracious and loving.
For as we seek to pursue the spiritual life, de Sales says that God is like a woman who is expecting a baby. What does such a pregnant woman do? She lovingly prepares for the coming of this new life into her world. She selects a special place in her home for the new baby, she builds or procures a beautiful cradle as their new dwelling place, and collects soft and comfy sheets and blankets and pillows to make them happy and secure.
And Francis declares that this is just what God is like. For as he says, God is like that expectant mother, only God is pregnant with us. And desires your new life and fulfillment, salvation and spiritual riches. So like the woman in the story, God in grace and love provides all the spiritual dwelling places, cradles, blankets and pillows that we will need in our pilgrimage to travel the spiritual path and come to seek and love our God. And this connects us back with the quote that we read at the beginning of how in his life and in his passion on the cross, Christ shows God’s love for us, but also creates for us all of the spiritual conditions and blessings that will make salvation possible for us.
“My God”, Francis asks, “how deeply this truth should be fixed in our memory. Is it possible that I have been loved, and loved so tenderly, by my Savior?” And this reflection on Christ’s love for us brings us back to our celebration for today, because his vision of Christ’s love centers on his passion. In the conclusion of his last major writing, published in 1616, de Sales shares with us some profound words. May they guide our way through the meaning of this Palm and Passion Sunday, our way through Holy Week that is to come, and our vision of the spiritual life that we are called to embrace.
He says,“Our Lord’s passion and death form the sweetest, strongest motive capable of moving our hearts in this life. Calvary is the mountain of lovers. Love that does not spring from the Savior’s passion is perilous. In our Lord’s passion love and death blend so inextricably that no heart can contain one without the other.
One path alone our feet must tread
While this life lasts, and God holds sway;
Eternal love or death – the choice;
And God has left no middle way.
Eternal love – my soul demands it; my choice is made! Yes, come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love. Death to all other loves, to live for love of Jesus. Living in your eternal love, Savior of our souls, let this be our song forever:
All for Jesus! All for Jesus, my love, living and reigning forever and ever. Amen!”
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