Welcome to Minute Meditation with St Francis de Sales! Each Sunday, I go through the book Introduction to the Devout Life and share a small piece to meditate on for the week.
From Chapter 2 – The Nature and Excellence of Devotion
Even in the bible, naysayers ran down devotion. When God was leading the Israelites into the promised land, people were saying it was impossible to live there and the inhabitants would eat them alive. St. Francis says:
The world…sees that devout persons fast, watch and pray, endure injury patiently, minister to the sick and poor, restrain their temper, check and subdue their passions, deny themselves in all sensual indulgence, and do many other things which in themselves are hard and difficult. But the world sees nothing of that inward, heartfelt devotion which makes all these actions pleasant and easy.
I hadn’t really considered it before, but motherhood is a great example of this. How many times have you not eaten to feed your child, or sat down to a cold dinner, or didn’t eat all your food because your child was still hungry after finishing theirs? Every time they are sick, we watch and pray. As they bite while nursing or dig their elbows in, not screaming when they have done something that you’ve told them 100 times not to do, or stop things you used to do because you don’t want your kids to do them. And you don’t think twice about any of it.
…Devotion is the sweetest of sweets, the queen of virtues, the perfection of love. If love is the milk of life, devotion is the cream thereof; if it is a fruitful plant, devotion is the blossom; if it is a precious stone, devotion is its brightness; if it is a precious balm, devotion is its perfume…
So obviously devotion like we experience in taking care of our children, is pleasing to God. The question becomes, how can we perform such devotion toward others with such abandon?
That will be my pondering this week. How about you?
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