My Mornings with St Frances de Sales

I am going to do something unusual. I am going to recommend a book that I am only halfway through. I enjoy this book so much, and don’t really envision those feeling changing at all as I continue to progress through the book. As people have been reading and talking about this book for nearly four hundred years I think I am safe in recommending it prematurely. Introduction to the Devout Life was written from a series of letters St Frances had sent to various laity under his spiritual direction. Most notably his cousin Madame Marie de Charmoisy. The book is very gently written and easy to understand. It was written for all Christians, especially those who still live in the world, and acts as a guide book to help us rightly order our minds and activities so we may attain heaven.

A few years ago as my husband was getting set to deploy, I was having a conversation with our priest. I was asking him for suggestions on something gentle and easy to read to encourage and help me in the difficult year I was facing. I wanted it to help me grow spritually, but also not take a lot of brain power to get through. I was facing a year solo, raising and schooling 4 kids, one of which was newly born, I wasn’t (and still am not) ready for Aquinas.. Without a moments hesitation he suggested Introduction to the Devout Life by St Frances de Sales. I promptly downloaded it to my kindle reader and began reading it shortly thereafter. As I began reading it, I was overwhelmed with how incredible it was. It was good, really good, like a gooey fudgy pan of brownies fresh from the oven good. I desperately wanted to keep reading, devouring it, but I also wanted to savor each morsel and let it soak in and transform me. In the everyday care of my busy family, and in my desire not to read the book too quickly it fell by the wayside, and was forgotten about.

Recently, St Frances de Sales kept coming into my day. He would be quoted here and there by very good friends. I would read random blog posts that would talk about his writings. He was trying to get my attention, and I just knew I had to get back into his book. I had to finish it. But I was still hesitant to read it too quickly. I still wanted to be able to absorb it as I was reading it. One morning I was opening my email and reading a tiny bit of the Catechism through flocknote when an idea struck me. What if I did the same thing for Intro to the Devout Life? What if I just read one chapter a day? This would encourage me to finish reading the book, but also give me the time I wanted to savor each small morsel.

I have been doing just that for the past few months now. Every morning, as I finish my coffee, before I officially start my day, I will open my book and read one more chapter from St Frances de Sales. The chapters are short, and so it only takes a few minutes, and then I have the rest of the day to reflect on what I have read. It is hard to limit myself to just one chapter, but I gain so much in just a few short pages, that I benefit from the extra time to reflect on what I just read. The writing is gentle and easy. He has a gift for metaphors which makes it very easy to hold an image in your mind as you go about your day. For example here is one quote from Section 3, Chapter 10 on attending to the cares of life with our too much anxiety:
“Imitate a little child, whom one sees holding tight with one hand to its father, while with the other it gathers strawberries or blackberries from the wayside hedge. Even so, while you gather and use this world's goods with one hand, always let the other be fast in your Heavenly Father's Hand, and look round from time to time to make sure that He is satisfied with what you are doing, at home or abroad. Beware of letting go, under the idea of making or receiving more--if He forsakes you, you will fall to the ground at the first step. When your ordinary work or business is not specially engrossing, let your heart be fixed more on God than on it; and if the work be such as to require your undivided attention, then pause from time to time and look to God, even as navigators who make for the haven they would attain, by looking up at the heavens rather than down upon the deeps on which they sail. So doing, God will work with you, in you, and for you, and your work will be blessed.”

So I encourage you. Whether you buy a hardcopy of the book, download it into an ereader, or read it over the internet, start to read this book. Take it a little bit at a time, one small chapter a day. Start your morning with St Frances de Sales as he teaches us how to turn every moment into a gift for our Savior.