“Lift your heart up gently whenever it falls.
Humble yourself before God,
but do not be astonished by your fall
since it is not surprising that
weakness is weak,
frailty is frail
and misery is miserable!”

St Francis de Sales

In truth, I would not have neglected to tell you to trample under foot all your feelings, your interests, your fears, your aversions, if I had not had that confidence in the goodness of the heavenly Spouse, that He would give you strength and courage to take the side of inspiration and reason against that of nature and aversion. Behold you, then, all dead to the world, and the world all dead to you.

That is one part of the holocaust, and there remain two more yet. The first of these is to flay the victim, stripping your heart of itself, cutting and tearing away all those minute impressions given us by the world and nature; and the second is to burn up and reduce to ashes your self-love, and convert your soul, all in flames with celestial love.  –‘Practical Piety’ The Saint Francis de Sales Collection.

You must draw near to our Lord, and speak to Him of something else, until your spirit is restored and tranquilised. For whilst the trouble lasts, you ought not to say or do anything, but remain firm and resolute not to consent to your distress, whatever reason there may be for it; for you will never want reasons at such a time; they will come in crowds; but you must not listen to one of them, however good it may seem to you; but keep yourself nigh unto God, speaking to Him of something else, as I said, and diverting your mind from the subject of your sorrow after you have humiliated and submitted yourself before His majesty.

But observe this remark, which I take pleasure in repeating because of its utility: humiliate yourself with a sweet and peaceful humility, and not with a sad and troubled humility; for it is our misfortune that we bring before God acts of humility full of vexation and sorrow; and so doing, we do not assuage our spirits, and we render those acts fruitless. If, on the contrary, we perform these acts before the Divine goodness with a sweet confidence, we should come out full of peace and serenity, and would very easily reject all the reasons, very often and generally speaking unreasonable, which our own judgment and our self-love suggest to us, and we would go and speak to those who corrected us with as much ease as before.   – – Saint Francis de Sales, Advice on receiving and giving correction.

I perceived the suggestions which the enemy of your progress (Satan, worldly ways) makes upon your heart, and I also perceive the grace which the most holy Spirit of God gives you to maintain you strong and firm in pursuing the path wherein He has placed you.

The evil one cares not about our mortifying the body (exterior behavior), provided we do always what he wishes (interior life): he fears not austerity, but obedience. What greater austerity can there be than holding one’s will continually subject and obedient? You are fond of these voluntary penances (false humility); if, after all, the works of self-love can be called by the name of penances (contrived spiritual efforts).

When you gave yourself to God, after many prayers and much consideration (authenticity), it was found good that you should enter into obedience and the denial of your own will, rather than be left to your own judgment and to yourself: do not, then, let yourself be overcome, but remain where our Lord has placed you (patience, trust, and submission).

It is true, that you there have great mortifications of heart, perceiving yourself so imperfect in that path, and so worthy of frequent correction and reproof; but is not this the very thing you ought to seek, mortification of the heart, and the continual sense of your own abjectness? (Brutal honesty, penetrating self-knowledge)

But, say you, you cannot do such and such a penance…Tell me, I reply, what better penance could an erring heart have, than to endure a continual cross and denial of its self-love? But I say too much: God Himself will hold you with that same hand of His mercy with which He placed you in this vocation; and the enemy will have no victory over you…. (within failure God succeeds) –The Saint Francis de Sales Collection.

Earth as we are, let us walk on earth, since the deep sea turns our head and makes us reel. Let us remain at our Lord s feet with Mary; let us practice those little virtues which are adapted to our littleness; and there are virtues that are exercised rather in descending than in ascending, the better for our weakness. Such are patience, the bearing with our neighbour and doing him service, humility, sweetness, courage, affability, the endurance of our own imperfections, and other little virtues like them. I do not say that we are not to ascend by means of prayer; but it must be step by step. –St Francis de Sales