From St. Francis de Sales’ Introduction to the Devout Life
Translated by John K. Ryan, published by Image, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group,
Random House LLC, New York 1966
“Usually self-love leads us away from reason and directs us imperceptibly into countless small yet dangerous acts of injustice and iniquity, which, like the little foxes spoken of in the Canticle of Canticles, destroy the vines” (202).
“We condemn every little thing in our neighbor and excuse ourselves of important things” (202).
“We rigorously demand our own rights, but want others to be considerate in insisting on theirs. We maintain our rank with exactness, but we want others to be humble and accommodating as to theirs. We complain easily about our neighbors, but none of them must complain about us. What we do for others always seems very great, but what is done for us seems nothing at all. In short, like the Paphlagonian partridges we have two hearts. We have a mild, gracious, and courteous attitude toward ourselves and another that is hard, severe, and rigorous toward our neighbor” (203).
From the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 7, verse 1 – 5:
Do not judge, and you will not be judged; because the judgements you give are the judgements you will get, and the standard you use will be the standard used for you. Why do you observe the splinter in your brother’s eye and never notice the great log in your own? And how dare you say to your brother, “Let me take that splinter out of your eye,” when, look, there is a great log in your own?
Hypocrite! Take the log out of your own eye first, and then you will see clearly enough to take the splinter out of your brother’s eye. (https://www.catholic.org/bible/book.php?id=47&bible_chapter=7)“Be just and equitable in all your actions, Philothea. Always put yourself in your neighbor’s place and him in yours, and then your will judge rightly” (203).
“( . . . . ) [F]or a man losses nothing by living generously, nobly, courageously, and with a royal, just, and reasonable heart, Philothea, resolve to examine your heart often to see if it is such toward your neighbor as you would like his to be toward you were you in his place. This is the touchstone of true reason” (204).
“Do not desire faraway things, that is, things that cannot happen for a long time, as many people do, and by doing so wear out and waste their hearts to no purpose and expose themselves to the danger of becoming vey discontented” (204).
“Do not desire crosses except in proportion to the way in which you have patiently carried those already sent to you. It is an abuse to desire martyrdom and lack courage to put up with an injury. The enemy often supplies us with great desires for absent things that we will never encounter in order to divert our minds from present things, from which, small as they may be, we might obtain great profit” (205).
“Do not overburden your soul with many desires, neither worldly desires, which may completely corrupt you, nor with spiritual desires for they may cause you difficulty” (205).
“Above all else I exhort married people to have that mutual love which the Holy Spirit in Scripture so highly recommends to them. O you who are married, it means nothing to say, ‘Love one another with a natural love’ – two turtle doves make such love. Nor does it mean anything to say, ‘Love one another with a human love’ – the pagans have duly practiced such love. With the great apostle I say to you, ‘Husbands, love your wives as Christ also loved the Church,’ and wives, love your husbands as the Church loves her Savior” (207).
“Why then do you not cherish each other with a completely holy, completely sacred, and completely divine love? The first effect of this love is the indissoluble union of your hearts. ( . . . . ) The second effect of this love must be the inviolable fidelity of each party to the other” (207).
“Love and fidelity joined together always produce familiarity and mutual trust, and hence in their married life the saints, both men and women, have used many reciprocal caresses, truly affectionate but chaste, tender, sincere caresses” (210).
“As to other things, then, mutual support must be so great that they will never be angry with each other at the same time, and hence quarrels or disputes will never be seen between them. Honeybees cannot remain in one place where there are echoes, loud noises, and resounding voices, nor can the Holy Spirit remain in a home where there are quarrels, recriminations, and the echoing sounds of scolding and strife” (212).
“Let a widow be constant in the practice of prayer” (220).
“As soon as worldly people see that you wish to follow a devout life they aim a thousand darts of mockery and even detraction at you. The most malicious of them will slander your conversion as hypocrisy, bigotry, and trickery. They will say that the world has turned against you and being rebuffed by it you have turned to God” (222).
“You must live in the world like one in the world. ( . . . . ) We can never please the world unless we lose ourselves together with it. It is so demanding that it can’t be satisfied. ‘John came neither eating nor drinking,’ says the Savior, and you say, ‘He has a devil.’ ‘The Son of man came eating and drinking’ and you say that he is ‘a Samaritan’” (223).
“Thus the world looks at us with an evil eye and we can never please it. It exaggerates our imperfections and claims they are sins, turns our venial sins into mortal sins and changes our sins of weakness into sins of malice” (223).
“Let us give up this blind world, Philothea. Let it cry out at us as long as it pleases, like a cat that cries out to frighten birds in the daytime. Let us be firm in our purposes and unswerving in our resolutions. Perseverance will prove whether we have sincerely sacrificed ourselves to god and dedicated ourselves to a devout life” (224).
“You may take my word, if you persevere [in the devout life] it will not be long before you obtain consolations so delicious and pleasing that you will acknowledge that the world is mere gall compared to such honey and that a single day of devotion is better than a thousand years of worldly life” (225).
The truly patient man neither complains of his hard lot nor desires to be pitied by others. He speaks of his sufferings in a natural, true, and sincere way, without murmuring, complaining, or exaggerating them (IDL Part III, Chapter 3, page 119).
