St Francis de Sales, I perceive, as a unique thinker of splendor, an expressive man of beautiful words. St Bernard of Clairvaux was known as the mellifluous one, dispensing words as sweet as honey, yet I cannot imagine words sweeter than the following. Embracing a theology of negation, still, a natural inclination for praise elevated to delight, creative flowery celebration wields immense delectation, a conquest of apathy, sloth, and lethargy. Within humility, let’s have fun burning bright.

So this heavenly spouse when he thought good to begin the promulgation of his law, cast down upon the assembly of those disciples whom he had deputed for this work a shower of fiery tongues, sufficiently intimating thereby that the preaching of the Gospel was wholly designed for the inflaming of hearts. Represent to yourself beautiful doves (the apostles) amidst the rays of the sun; you will see their plumage break into as many different colours as you change your point of viewing them; because their feathers are so fitted to display the light, that when the sun comes to spread his splendour on them, a multitude of reflections are made, producing a great variety of tints and glancing colours, colours so agreeable to the eye that they surpass all other colours, even the enamel of richest jewels; colours so resplendent and so delicately gilded that the gilding makes their own colours more bright than ever; for it was this sight which made the royal prophet say If you sleep among the midst of lots; you shall be as the wings of a dove covered with silver, and the hinder parts of her back with the paleness of gold. The Church is indeed adorned with ith an excellent variety of teachings, sermons, treatises and spiritual books, all very beautiful and pleasant to the sight by reason of the admirable mingling which the Sun of Justice makes of his divine wisdom with the tongues of his pastors, which are their feathers, and with their pens, which sometimes hold the place of tongues, and form the rich plumage of this mystic dove. But amongst all the divers colours of the doctrine which she displays, the fine gold of holy Charity is everywhere spread, and makes itself excellently visible, gilding all the science of the saints with its incomparable lustre, and raising it above every other science. All is love’s, and in love, for love, and of love, in the holy Church.

It is astonishing, says Pope St. Gregory, that we who are so unmortified presume to aspire to contemplation. We are full of ourselves and we would be filled with God! We exercise no restraint over either our body or our heart; we grant our senses all that they ask; we gratify our eyes with curious objects, our mind with innumerable vanities; we spend our time in vain and idle conversations; we give ourselves up to dissipation of heart every day, and we think we can establish ourselves in recollection at once and when we will. This is impossible.  – – St Francis de Sales ‘The Secret of Sanctity’.

St Francis de Sales

Holy consideration of God in spiritual things!—which, as of its nature it does not breed fancies of the imagination, so it will not breed dreams. The consideration which belongs to the first degree is more interrupted, this is more stable and more exalted. Hence it produces all its effects with more excellence, namely, a livelier love and more spiritual joyousness: to which God adding His grace forbids with a more particular solicitude that she should be awakened….  – – St Francis de Sales ‘Commentary on the Canticle of Canticles’

Artist Marc Chagall–Musee Marc Chag all