Introduction

Hello Everyone,

I hope you had a wonderful and richly blessed Christmas season. Next week, we will begin the second part of our retreat with St. Francis de Sales. We wanted to give everybody a break with all the festivities and celebrations – liturgically and with family and friends. We also wanted to let everyone who needed more time, or joined us later, to have time to catch up, as it were – but not be rushed!

I wanted to use this time to give some suggestions on preparing for this next phase of our time together with De Sales. I wish to also give you an outline of how we will proceed and a little bit about the book, Treatise on the Love of God, which this part of the retreat will be based on. This introduction may seem a bit long. If so, read a section at a time over this week.

Personal Preparation

Sylvia has very skillfully introduced us into a regular way of praying and reflecting through the Sundays and weeks of Advent. Each week she provided reflections and questions to use in a way that ushered us into the Presence of God. And she did it in such a gentle way, just like Francis de Sales, that we were meditating and praying before we knew it. The book she based her approach on, The Introduction to the Devout Life, has some suggestions for creating a prayerful and centered rhythm of life that I want to share with you. Being faithful to this rhythm will also help you deepen your prayer life and conversation with Christ. De Sales asks us to make a commitment to a few simple exercises each day. They do not take long, but are immensely helpful in allowing a prayerful and reflective lifestyle to develop in our lives. Here they are:

1. In the morning after rising and perhaps while drinking your morning coffee or tea, call to mind that God has given you this day specifically to spend with God as an intimate Companion, and this reflective time to prepare to plan how to do so. Reflect on the upcoming day and how you anticipate it will go, what work you need to do, etc. Think about how you can place reminders of God’s presence where you work – nothing that is necessarily even overtly religious, but will remind you. For instance, I bought a paper weight in the shape of a red heart that sits next to my computer. It reminds me to keep my heart attentive. I place it near the mouse I use. De Sales also advises us to reflect on any situations or relationships that may be difficult or a problem this day. Ask God to show you how to be Christ like in those situations and encounters. It may be helpful to write down in your prayer journal how you plan to do so. Rehearse as it were those situations and imagine how I will be Christ like in some detail. Make a resolution to let Jesus live freely through you all day long and ask God’s strength and joy to do so.

2. Make at least 15 minutes of prayer each day at the same general time. A good help in doing so is getting a missalette like Living with Christ. Read the Gospel. And reflect how God is speaking a personal word to me just for today. Speak to God as you would a close friend, in your own words, whatever God is saying to you in the Gospel reading. At the end of your prayer time, it may be helpful to write in your prayer journal what inspirations and insights God gave you. Taking the journal to work and reading back over what you wrote can be another way to stay centered and attentive to God’s companionship with you.

3. At the end of the day, near bedtime, reflect back on the day. How did it go? How did you succeed at being like Christ throughout the day? Where did you struggle and how could you handle similar situations differently the next time? What blessings are you grateful for that occurred today? How did God reveal His Divine Face to you today? Then, pray in your own words of gratitude for what has occurred this day and ask for God’s peace.

Treatise on the Love of God

This is the book which this part of the retreat will be based on. And a reminder, you do not need the book, but if you decide to get a copy, I will later tell you which translation and each week give you the chapters I am basing the week’s reflections on.

I will be using the Treatise as a Lover’s manual. De Sales wants us to understand that God is pursuing us with intense affection and delight. We as LGBT people are the focus, each one, of God’s tenderness and desire. De Sales wants us to marvel at how deep the intimacy is that God is seeking. So the Treatise is a guide into how to respond to the courting God is doing with us. De Sales wants us to come to an experience of God as our Beloved. Our response then flows not from the obligation to love God, but our own intense desire to respond to the One who relishes us and never wants to be separated from us. So in a sense, this part of the retreat is going to explore what a heart I love looks like both on God’s part and ours.

De Sales is very much inspired by the Word of God. He, like many spiritual and mystical writers, based his approach on that revealed in a small book in the Hebrew Scripture (Old Testament) called the Song of Songs or Song of Solomon, depending on the translation you use. I will be giving you sections from this great love poem to accompany us on our retreat journey.

How We Will Proceed

The retreat will cover the next 7 weeks, bringing us into Lent. I want to give you the themes for each of the weeks now, so you see the overall direction. The text I will be using and quoting from is called Living Love: A Modern Edition of the Treatise of the Love of God by Bernard Bangley. This is a contemporary translation and edits the original book. All the essence of the Treatise is there. Francis De Sales loves to use abundant metaphors and illustrations from nature, at times to excess. He also lived in a time when a vast amount of the botany and zoology turns out to be incorrect. This can be a bit distracting! So this is a great edition that allows De Sales to come through in all his fervor and intensity. If use wish to get a copy I have found copies at Barnes and Noble, Borders, and Pauline Books & Media ($14.99). I got my copy at the Pauline Bookstore.

So here are the themes and foci for each week, and the chapters in the book that they are based on:

• Week 1: Thirsting for the One we love (1)
• Week 2: Being drawn by the One we Love (2)
• Week 3: Exploring the depths of Love (3)
• Week 4: Love needs to be chosen anew everyday (4, 5)
• Week 5: Feeding Love through prayer (6, 7)
• Week 6: Responding to the desires of the One we Love (8, 9, 10)
• Week 7: A Life transformed – A Lover’s Lifestyle (11, 12)

Thanks for being with me, and I look forward to getting started on this Lover’s journey this Sunday (01/10/10).

Sunday Reflection

Francis de Sales, as he opens us to explore what it means that God loves us, makes this astounding statement in the first chapter of his Treatise on the Love of God: “This relationship brings joy to both participants.” He says that this intimate relationship between God and us is wombed in joy; God’s delight is to be with us, and in turn, God wants us to discover and experience for ourselves, what delight God can be. When is the last time you thought about God delighting in you? If you are like me, my upbringing emphasized what I owed God, my obligations to God. But this is not where Francis wants us to begin. He wants us to first learn to let ourselves, as LGBT people, wade into God’s thirst for us. Francis is really sharing with us his own spiritual experience and prayer life. So convinced is Francis of God’s desire to be with us and to get our attention, he says that God has planted a natural desire in us for the Divine Presence, written in our nature as a human being.

So what does this mean practically? It means in one day we have multiple experiences that are openings, windows as it were, ushering us into God’s presence. The key is to pay attention and recognize these experiences. The awe that comes from a sunrise or sunset;  the powerful feelings that are stirred by music; the tenderness of another person that makes us feel loved in a gratuitous way; the delight you experience in a work of art or being moved by a poem. All these experiences are moments when we go beyond ourselves and are opened to realities greater than ourselves. These are some of the ways that God reminds us we are being noticed by a Presence we may not name. Because all of creation is made in the image of God, everything created is a mirror of the Divine Loveliness that draws us to Itself. Unfortunately, most of us have these experiences and don’t ponder them and savor them and let them work their magic as it were. We get busy or as I have learned with many LGBT people, even dismiss these callings because the Church has told us we are bad and unworthy of the Divine Notice. Francis goes on to alert us to the result of our distracted way of life: “We are naturally inclined toward God, but we remain underdeveloped. We do not ripen into total love.” The key here is his word “ripen.” Like a mysterious lover, God is constantly moving through our day grasping for our attention. However, we get distracted, and so we don’t “ripen” in our awareness or ability to see.

This week, as we begin our journey into learning and letting ourselves experience God’s thirst for us, Francis wants us to begin to build an awareness and let our attention ripen. He tells us to do this by naming and noticing the visitations of God in our human, everyday experience.

I am going to give you some quotes from this first chapter in his book along with some reflection questions. I encourage you to use them in your prayer; to name and record your reflections in your journal. As I mentioned in the introduction to this part of the retreat, use your evening review of the day to remember the experiences in which you were amazed and awed by things you saw or happened to you. I encourage you to go on the blog and post some of the fruits of these reflections and assist others in seeing things they may not have seen in their own lives except through your sharing.

Monday: “Our natural desire for God can be satisfied. God uses this fondness in us as though it were a handle that one can grasp.” What deep desires does God wish to satisfy in you? Imagine God grasping and holding you through out the day and in prayer.

Tuesday: “In every human soul God has implanted a desire to seek the Divine. It is in you. It is in your friends.” How do your friends reveal to you the face of God tenderly looking at you with desire? What qualities of God are revealed to you in your friends?

Wednesday: “We may be born and nourished in this physical world, but we have a latent natural receptivity to the spiritual.” How does nature reveal to you God’s presence? Try to take a walk in a park or the Botanical Gardens and notice what catches your eye, what moves you to awe at Beauty?

Thursday: “The human soul is implanted with a natural tendency to seek God. Like the eagle, we see beyond our present location.” Take some time and gain the broad vision of the eagle. Look back on your life and remember the times you experience awe, goodness, beauty? How is God trying to reveal the Divine Loveliness in such memories?

Friday:  “The slightest contemplation of the divine brings us pleasure.” In what ways has God entered your life through pleasure? What brings you pleasure and joy? What might God be trying to tell you about the Divine One through pleasure?

Saturday: “We are created ‘in the image of God’ (Genesis 1:27). This makes us exceptionally attracted to the Divine Majesty.” What do you find attractive about God? How have you felt God coming to you in your attractions and profound desires for goodness and love?

The poet Rumi captures in poetry the message Francis de Sales is trying to tell us, that every human experience is a window God passes through to touch us. Relish it!

Until next week – blessing and joy!

Sunday Reflection

Happy feast day! Though it is Sunday, today is Francis De Sales’ feast day in the liturgical calendar.

Welcome back everyone! Hope you had a great week and our first week’s reflections were helpful to you. This week De Sales is going to take us on an unexpected journey in exploring how God draws us to the Divine Self. It is a rather unique approach, but is very key to De Sales approach to living a life of intimacy with God. He wants us to understand that God is anxious for our response to the affection God has for us. He makes this clear in the chapter we are basing this week’s reflections upon: “God loves us and wants our love in return….A response of love is what matters.”

How God seeks this response is very surprising. As we draw close to God, God enters our life as a mirror. And in that mirror, God lets us see ourselves as God sees us, loves us, and finds us desirable. Now if you are like me, I was taught to focus off myself and only think of God and others. But being the wise psychologist that De Sales is, he realizes that many of us try to “win” God’s affection and love, because deep down we are not too sure if we are all that attractive. God want us to understand that we are very attractive. In fact Francis is so sure of this and wants to cut our self- doubt to the quick by stating, “We feel the first stirrings of God’s love long before we are completely faithful to God.” In other words, God has been marveling at our beauty and loveliness long before we are even aware that we are noticed by God. God wants us to appreciate our own beauty and be secure in ourselves. Only then can we give of ourselves.

De Sales makes clear that we need to not look at others or compare ourselves, for we are uniquely gifted unlike anyone else. We need to be able to name our gifts. And since these are gifts that have been graciously bestowed upon us, we don’t need to worry about pride or being self-centered. Our Lover has enriched us with these gifts and is their source.

When we waste our time wallowing in our deficiencies and warts, we are no longer in the Presence of the One who is wooing us and ravished by us. Unfortunately we have bad vision and often are distracted about things in ourselves that God does not consider an issue. De Sales points out that diversity thrives on a richness we are unaccustomed to seeing, “The beauty of the world depends on variety. Differences and what appear to be inequalities are essential and inescapable.”

This week, Francis wants us to learn to appreciate ourselves so we can freely and fully give ourselves to God. Of course how God woos us and seeks us will depend on our state in life. If you are in a relationship, God waits for us and seeks our love through the one we love, our partner, or close friend. If we feel called to be single, this way to God may not be through one person primarily, but a community we feel called to serve. I have always felt called to serve the LGBT community and find part of the way I give myself to God and make a response to the Divine Affection is serving the community. But it is essential we love ourselves as gift and take the time to see ourselves with God’s eyes, not our farsighted or nearsighted vision which distorts.

Again use your journal to record your reflections and I encourage you to share them on the blog. I will as last week, give quotes from De Sales, then reflection question.

Monday: “Our spiritual makeup is as varied as our physical. Each person has distinct gifts. Our diversity is infinite.” Take some time today and in your journal list all the talents and gifts you feel you have. Then spend time thanking God for being such a generous Lover.

Tuesday: “Such joy and pleasure. We are thrilled. ’How beautiful you are my love! Oh how beautiful’ (Song 1:15).” Rest in prayer letting God relish the beauty of who you are as an LGBT person. Ask God to let you always see yourself as God does.

Wednesday: “God offers …grace in abundance to all of us in a great variety of ways. It is our receiving it that makes the difference.” Create in your journal a history of the graces God has lavished on you as virtues, insights, and prayer experiences in which you felt loved and embraced by God. Express your gratitude for each one in your own words.

Thursday: “Our behavior excites divine compassion and causes God to consider ways to rescue us.” What an entirely different view of our sins and failings. Offer each sin or failing you feel you have to God and trust that it will excite God’s compassion to heal you.

Friday: “When God sends a really powerful inspiration to lead us to divine love, it is important to respond fully and not partially.” Focus on listening and being attentive to God’s inspirations and responding to them. This is how God heals us of our failings and excites our affection for such a Lover.

Saturday:”God is so eager for us to love (God), issuing an invitation to the general public is not enough. (God) makes house calls going from door to door…. (God) stands there knocking. (God) calls out to the soul, “Arise my love, my beautiful one, and come with me (Song 2:10).’ He rattles the door knob.” During your prayer and throughout the day, rest in this image of Christ coming to you and desiring you. Don’t miss the knock because you had the stereo too loud on what is wrong with you!

As today is St. Francis de Sales’ feast day, I encourage you to pray the prayer to him adapted from the missal:

Loving God,
You gave Francis de Sales the spirit of compassion to befriend all on the way to salvation. By his example, lead us to show your gentle love in the service of those you have placed in our lives. We ask this through Jesus, the Christ, who lives with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.                                                                                    Amen

Sunday Reflection

Welcome back. I hope your week was rich in understanding and discoveries of God’s affection for you. The fascinating dimension to De Sales approach in being a lover of God, is that in letting God unleash the divine delight for us, we DISCOVER what it is to be a lover and the way to go forward in this calling of ours.

Now this week, De Sales again makes a simple statement that is meant to startle us into a new depth of awareness and then open us to unexpected insights and implications in this formation program of being a lover of God. He makes this declaration in the middle of this chapter; “The soul is our Savior’s spouse.” As we ponder and unpack this statement, in effect, what De Sales is telling us, is in Christ, God has become a human lover. We are not being asked to devote ourselves and enter into a relationship with a cold or abstract God off yonder somewhere that we will not meet again until death. De Sales’ vision is that this life is our engagement and courtship time with the Beloved. “Here on earth we are engaged, but not married….The love that bonds us here will become eternal.” So in De Sales’ vision, God is constantly wooing and flirting with us, to gain our attention and then captivate our heart. This is why faith is so important, as it allows us the corrective lens to see into the depths of what is happening in our lives as LGBT people, and understanding its ultimate meaning as rooted in the metaphor of courtship.

The corollary to this insight of his is that there is a density to intimacy. Intimacy is living and will only thrive if it continues to deepen. If it ever stays the same, it begins to wither, as that is contrary to its nature. “We can love God more each day until the end of life.”

So this week we want to use our prayer time to explore and relish this affection God has for us. We will take the time to marvel at how desirable a Lover God is. I am going to provide you with some quotes, from Chapter 3 this week, the liturgy and Scripture to provide ways and clues to “see” the face of God and how desirable God is. And again don’t forget to use the blog to share any insights you get in prayer with us all. If you rather send them to me, so I can post them, feel free to do so at: stancil445@aol.com. I will not post your name, unless you tell me to do so.

Monday: “God has signed all created things. We can trace (God’s) footsteps through the created world.” De Sales takes us back to week one, but this time we are to look at nature, friends, and ourselves as icons of God’s face and beauty. Reflect on this during your prayer time today.

Tuesday: “I am espoused to Him (Christ) whom the angels serve; sun and moon stand in wonder at his beauty” – Antiphon from the feast of St Agnes. Ask God in your prayer to reveal to you the Divine loveliness and desirability.

Wednesday: “We have a thirst that cannot be satisfied by the things of this world….Oh my soul, be restless within me.” How are the things you enjoy and treasure stepping stones to seeing the face of God? What do they show you about God?

Thursday: When God lovingly regards a soul in the (Divine) image, it returns the attention.” How are you being called to return God’s affectionate attention to you through prayer, through relationships, through work?

Friday: “Even small increases on our part open wider the path for divine love. Sacred love is not divided into great and small.” What everyday fidelities is God calling you to, that opens an increase of Divine Love for you?

Saturday: “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for your love-making is sweeter than wine…your name is an oil poured out…” - Song of Songs 1:2, 3. How have you experienced the kiss of God in both your past and present? Record this in your journal, so you can remember these kisses when you feel dry or unmotivated in your spiritual life.

Sunday Reflection

Welcome back. I hope you have been enjoying the retreat so far and you have had a wonder filled week!

So far in our retreat, Francis de Sales has spent a lot of time focusing on God’s desire for us and the invitation to deep intimacy that evolves. This week he is going to focus on the doorway to that relationship – choices! Just as in any relationship, someone can like us, but we have to accept the person’s offer of friendship. Once we become friends the closeness does not stalemate. A relationship is a living thing and needs to be nourished. De Sales wants us to realize this is true with God too. Last week, I mentioned that God in Christ has become a human lover. The good news is that God has no imperfections and plays no games as a lover. But we have choices we need to make, which either deepens our relationship or stalls it. So let’s see what kind of wisdom and insight our friend Francis has for us this week.

Surprise! Francis has a positive view of what we term temptations! “God does not spare us temptations. Why? Because they are an excellent spiritual exercise.” Now in the language of his day, a spiritual exercise included prayer, reading of the Bible and other books of spirituality, celebrating the Eucharist and a host of other activities to nourish the inner life. Along with all of these he also goes and includes temptations in the mix as a spiritual discipline. What is this all about? Well what he is trying to make us aware of, is that everyday we have choices to make – and those choices have effects on the level of closeness, we have with God (and others also!) Francis does not see the world we live in as an awful dangerous place so much as a fascinating place where we can get distracted and un-centered. Think of it more like a decision to live in a fog or to see clearly on a sunny day. It is the same with a relationship with a partner or a friendship with someone. We can decide to stay in touch, do things together, and share our depths with another or not. If we don’t do these positive things, the relationship suffers and can even become distant. A friend becomes merely an acquaintance as it were.

De Sales realizes that the response to temptation is not so much fighting it or getting enmeshed in it by trying to analyze it. Instead he has a more positive approach, a strong offensive if you will. He believes that keeping our focus on what makes God desirable will flourish the heart so it is preoccupied with getting closer to Christ. Therefore, in his vision of the inner life, we need to make choices, which are what temptations are all about at their core.

And as you have learned, De Sales doesn’t just give a general direction to walk in, he provides instructions and helpful hints about the journey. So this week, I am going to make the daily reflections and prayer focus on those ways he feels will inflame the heart so it makes the right choices.

Monday: Use your environment to keep your affection fresh for God. I mentioned in the introduction to Part II of the retreat how I use a heart paperweight by my computer to remind me of God’s presence. Take some time today to evaluate the main environments in your life – home, work, the car, etc. What kind of a reminder can you place in each environment to keep you aware of God’s Presence? How often do you need to change the reminder so you don’t stop seeing it? Is it time to change one you have now and what will it be?

Tuesday: “It (devotion and desire for God) is a matter of exercising affection.” Reflect on what is it about God or Jesus, that enamors your affection for this Person. Write in your journal, so you remember and can return to relish those aspects of Christ that increase your affection for Him.

Wednesday: “Our love for God begins in the desire to please…It result in generous kindness….Generous kindness, then creates a desire to increase our cheerful willingness to please God….A generous, kind desire to increase one’s holy, friendly willingness to comply pushes all other pleasures aside.” De Sales’ logic here is that the more we love God as our Lover, the more we are preoccupied in doing things that bring joy to our Beloved. Each time we do, our generosity increases, and we form a habit of being preoccupied with delighting our Lover. This brings a wonderful pleasure that makes other joys pale in comparison. In your prayer, reflect on what excites your generosity in pleasing the One who delights in you.

Thursday: “God shines all the light we need upon us. Inspirations come like sunbeams, warming us with attractive love.” De Sales points out that God gives us insight and inspirations to help our understanding appreciate how lovable and desirable God is. Spend some time recalling some of these inspirations – what excites you about God? Then try and be attentive to the fresh inspirations God will give you the rest of the week.

Friday: “When the Heavenly Spouse comes into the devout soul, (God) has come into a garden. (God) plants in this garden the loving friendly desire to comply that nourishes us. God is pleased that we are pleased. It is a reciprocal pleasure.” What a wonderful insight, God plants the desire in us to love and please our Beloved. Pleasing God brings joy and pleasure to us. Then God delights in the pleasure and joy we experience in bringing our gifts, our desires, our efforts at fulfilling the desires God implanted and inspired us to accomplish. In prayer, seek to discover the attitudes or images which keep you from perceiving pleasing God as the mutual joy lovers share. Remember, God delights in responding to our deepest desires. As St. Ignatius teaches, our deepest desires are God’s desires for us. They are a clue to God’s will in our lives. Take time and journal today about your deepest desires.

Saturday: “As the soul warms in praising God, it expands and dilates.” Just as a person might do, in praising and proclaiming those things one finds admirable and lovable in a lover, so too are we to praise our Beloved. This naming and then praising what we find attractive about God’s goodness and love, increases our desire for God. Spend time in prayer today praising those things about God you most delight in; that attract you to God.

Sunday Reflection

Happy Valentine’s Day! What a great day to focus on Love and how to nourish it! And Francis De Sales is a great guide for celebrating the Day of the Heart. So let’s see what he has in mind for us this week.

So far we have discussed God’s intense desire for us; we have, last week, talked about the choices we are invited to explore and make in responding to Divine Love. But how do you set the heart on fire and stoke it, so one’s thirst for God grows and delights in the Beloved? De Sales wants us to understand and then practice prayer as the way to do this. His reflections mirror what anyone does in order to deepen a human relationship. You need to spend time alone with the person you love and share yourself deeply with that person. The one we love does the same. “In the Song of Songs, the divine lover and the heavenly spouse characterize their love as an uninterrupted conversation.” So prayer is imaged as two lovers talking to one another and sharing their lives. This means we need time to do this. We set time aside each day to ensure we and God have time for just each other.

Now it is easy to say prayer is a conversation between God and us, but what do you talk about? Just as in any relationship, we have our moods and sometimes we feel the need to talk and other times we just want to be near the person we love. We can be in the same room reading, and experience a delight in doing so, just because we know the one we love is in the room with us. Francis knows this is the same with God. He uses two words to help capture these aspects of communicating: meditation and contemplation. Don’t get scared off by these words, as they are just words used to describe various ways to share our life with God. Francis wants us to understand that they are related too. Here is how De Sales describes the way one leads to the other: “Our desire for God leads us to meditate. An awareness of the loving presence of God results in contemplation.”

De Sales sees meditation as a way to learn more about our Beloved. “Meditation involves thinking….The purpose of meditation is… appreciation and love.” He has a wonderful image of meditation that captures its purpose – “we meditate to stockpile the love of God.” God already knows us intimately, and as I have stated in previous parts of this retreat, God is always contemplating us. We, who are so easily distracted and get preoccupied, need to meditate on God, to consciously relish and delight in our Lover. The easiest way to do so is the Gospels, in which we experience Jesus of Nazareth, as God among us. Remember, in Christ, God has become a human lover. Through praying the Gospels, we get to know the desires, goodness, and desirableness of God.

As we meditate, some thought may strike us, really capture our attention. De Sales uses the word “spellbound” to describe this. When that happens we marvel and linger – our hearts expand and our desire for God grows. “Lovers have their own language. They do not require spoken language.” This is the experience of communion – being in the same room and delighting in each others presence. As familiarity grows simplicity in our relationship develops; and being mutually present to one another nourishes a deep contentment in each other. This is what is called contemplation by mystics.

De Sales says, “Contemplation is an adoring, uncomplicated, and enduring attention of the soul to divine things.” Again, De Sales wants to root us in the human experience of two lovers. That is what our prayer life is modeled on. Listen to how he describes this thing we call contemplation, “Because we find the object of our love beautiful, we love. Because we love, we enjoy the sight of our beloved. Love wants to dwell upon the beauty of the beloved and the sight deepens devoted love.” De Sales wants us to understand that this simple presence to one another between God and us is the normal movement of prayer. In fact, the more we get to know God through reflection and sharing our life with God in conversation at prayer, our love and affection for God grows and we begin to rest in delight. In time, this restful delight and attentiveness begins to expand into longer periods of time. Eventually it becomes the usual way we pray. “During this time, the soul is enjoying a delicate awareness of the divine presence.” This is a gift of grace and not something we make happen. But we prepare for it by being faithful to regular prayer and using meditation to help us savor Christ and come to know God as revealed in his person and life. “Sometimes our Lord unnoticeably infuses into the deep places of our being a particularly delightful pleasantness that assures us (God) is present. This increases the ability of the soul to turn towards its most interior part and be there with the friendliest and dearest of spouses.”

To desire someone is to want to please that person, and that is what prayer is enabling us to do. De Sales describes this in terms anyone who has been in love knows to be true. “If you know you are loved, you are inspired to return that love.”

Monday: So how has your commitment to daily prayer been going? What do you need to change so that you have time for prayer?

Tuesday: “Meditating upon God’s goodness excites our desire to love God.” In your prayer, reflect on God’s goodness in your life. How are you inspired to love God in response to such affection?

Wednesday: “To arrive at contemplation, we must hear the word of God, confer with others on spiritual matters, read, pray, sing and conceive worthy thoughts.” Today is Ash Wednesday and a call to renewal. How might you spend Lent implementing De Sales advice on deepening your prayer life?

Thursday: “While meditating we may think of God’s mercy toward us and be led to love.” Spend some time today focusing on God’s mercy toward you. How have you experienced it? Write a litany of God’s mercies toward you in your journal.

Friday: “(W)hen our Savior utters a word of love in secret or lets us feel his presence…He becomes the most desirable object of all and our souls are attracted to him.” What is the word Christ is speaking to you today that makes Him so desirable?

Saturday: Litanies are a great way to find images or discover aspects of God that nourish our affection for God. Find a copy of the Litany of the Holy Name of Jesus and use it for prayer. Use one of the titles you especially like and repeat it through the day to help you live in the presence of your Beloved.

Overall Reflection

Welcome back and to the season of Lent! Our focus this next to last week of the retreat goes well with the reflective nature of Lent and Jesus’ call to the Wilderness. We need solitude in our lives to reflect, clarify, and come to new decisions.

This week, Francis de Sales wants us to consider more in-depth, our response to the God who woos us and who has such deep affection for us. Our response is, in his language and period in history – embracing and doing the will of God. Now you may wonder why I put it that way, per his time and culture. The reason is, we have some ideas that he and his time did not hear in the words ‘will of God.’ If you are similar to me, I got a message, that whatever the will of God is, it is hard, I probably don’t want to do it, and I will need to sacrifice whatever I do like in my life to do the will of God. In fact, at an unreflective stage, I almost have this equation going in at the back of my mind – What I want or like must be sacrificed to please God. Like most maxims that are off, there is some truth. Yes, there are some things that I may want that are not the will of God, but this is the wrong approach.

De Sales sees the will of God in light of a lover’s relationship. I have a desire to please my Beloved and make my Beloved happy, even if at times it is not my cup of tea, so to speak. Since De Sales holds that God reveals so much of the Divine self through creation, including human experience, he uses this lover, marriage experience as a metaphor for unpacking what it means to please God.

However, unlike a human lover, who one can see and ask, what he or she wants or enjoys, God is not so visible! But not a problem for our friend and bishop Francis! He has a very practical way to allow us to discover how to know and please our Lover. So let me sum it up in two simple sayings:

1. Commandments are few, counsels are many and inspirations are focused.                                                                                                                                         

2. Commandments are for everyone, counsels are for a few and inspirations are only for you.

So, what does this mean! There are various ways we can know what delights this God who loves us. Some of that is expressed in commandments. “A commandment expresses the full desire of the one who issues the order.” In God’s commandments, the divine desire is fully expressed. But, De Sales notes this kind of clarity is not expressed frequently. To use an example, the greatest commandment is to love God and our neighbor, and this sums up the intention and direction behind what we call the 10 commandments. God in Christ is clear about God’s will that we forgive others. These are clear indications of what God desires us to do. The question arises, how do I live that out. This brings up what he calls counsels. “Counsel is but an expression of desire….Counsel invites us.” There are counsels in Scripture that help us understand what God calls us to do, but not all of them apply to me or to you. The way a person who works on a barge and is on the barge for 14-30 days, will influence how he or she is able to love and help those in need, in a different way than someone who feels called to live at a Catholic Worker House and lives with the poor. So, the counsel to care for those in need which is a neighbor, is lived out differently based on our way of life. “You are not bound by the strictness of law to give alms to every poor person you encounter. Give freely to the ones you can help without hurting yourself.” Counsels invite us to explore how we can bring joy to our Beloved. “God does not want everyone to observe every counsel. We are to apply those counsels that are suitable to our condition.”

But, there is one other way we come to know what God desires, and is our desire to do so in order to express our affection and devotion to God: inspirations. Though these are tricky to discern, they are direct expressions of God’s desires, which always enrich us, tailored especially to each person. “The divine rays of inspiration illuminate our minds and animate our determination.” As most of us know, we may do many similar things for friends, but we are always trying to do something special and unique for one we are in love with. It shows how much we care. The same is true with following the inspirations of God. The difference is that our Beloved lets us know what brings God joy and gives us the will and strength to do it. De Sales is very clear too, that the inspirations from God are to be done orderly and not allowing ourselves to be overwhelmed by lots of different alternatives, getting confused and end up doing nothing. In a way, the tenderness of our affection for God is expressed by following the inspirations God gives us. And, God’s inspirations are tailored specifically for each one of us. The inspirations we receive and the understanding we get about them are unique to us and allow us to love God in the way only each of us can.

Reflections and actions for the week

This week, I want to approach ideas for prayer and living out our love and affection for God a bit differently. Since inspirations from God are unique to each one of us, what I want to do is give you some quotes from De Sales to help you discern and practice these inspirations so each day you can listen and do what you are intimately requested to do. I encourage you to write in your journal how it goes and what you learn. For in following the inspirations we receive, we express the tenderness and thoughtfulness of our affection for our Beloved. This is a skill we can only learn by practice, and it is okay to make mistakes, as God sees our sincere delight to please God as our Beloved. Keep in mind that God’s inspirations are always to deepen our inner life and are in harmony with our state in life – whether we are in a committed relationship, single, dating, or living in vows.

1. “If you discover God’s holy will regarding your vocation, keep at it holily and lovingly. With discretion and commitment do what is necessary to fulfill that sacred purpose.”

2. “One of best indicators of all inspirations in general and extraordinary ones in particular, is the peace and tranquility that comes from them. While the Holy Spirit is powerful, his power is gentle.”

3. “Those who keep themselves open to holy inspirations are truly happy. They never lack anything necessary for living well and devoutly in whatever their circumstance may be….We is to follow God’s inspiration without distraction.”

4. The clearest indicators of lawful inspiration are avoidance of infidelity and flippancy, peace and gentleness of heart, humble obedience, and an avoidance of the extravagant.”

5. Let me warn you…of a troublesome temptation that frequently comes to those who have a strong desire to do God’s will. They fret over trifles. …Should I wear black or gray clothes? Should I fast on Friday or Saturday?….While trying to determine what is best, they miss opportunities to do something good….Our attention is to be in proportion to the importance of what we are doing. Some things need serious consideration….But there is no reason to scrutinize every little thing we face on a daily basis. Even a mistake in these will not lead to any disastrous consequences.”

6. “We will be extremely careful to take care of every detail in any work that will bring glory to God, but we are not responsible for results that are beyond our control….Take it easy. It is our business to carefully cultivate devotion, but an abundant harvest is God’s business.”

Enjoy living an inspired life and giving joy to God!

Welcome to the last week of our retreat. I hope you have had an inspiring week per our reflections from last week (all puns intended). This Sunday, in which the Gospel is the Transfiguration, is a great way to end. It is the richness and power of our vision that will support us as we seek to live a Lover’s lifestyle with God.

In a sense, this whole retreat has been an attempt to explore and put into practice a Lover’s lifestyle. When De Sales comes to the end of his Treatise on the Love of God, he makes two closing points:

1. Love for God, put into practice, makes all the other virtues flourish. He points out that it is not what we do, but the love and devotion with which we do things, that makes us true lovers of God.

2. He wants to give some final directions on how to maintain the lifestyle you have been seeking to develop all throughout this retreat. That is what I want to share with you as part of this conclusion to our time together.

So, here are the things he wishes us to consider as we go forward in responding to the affection God has for us.

We cannot out do God’s generosity toward us:
“A single treasure is not enough for the divine lover. God wants us to have an abundance of treasures.”

Attending and stoking our desire for our Divine Lover is key:
“We need an insatiable desire of loving God….If there is a desire for holy love in you, you may be sure you are beginning to love.”

Your vocation in life is the place God wants you to grow as a lover:
“Necessary employment, according to each person’s vocation, does not hinder divine love. It increases and guides the work of devotion….The devout heart loves God no less when it turns from prayer to necessary business. Silence and speech, activity and contemplation, work and rest provide equal opportunity to sing a hymn of love.”

Our everyday activities are the arena for increasing our affection for God and experiencing the affection of God:
“We are not always asked to perform great works for God, but every moment we may do little ones with much excellent love….We are greatly sanctified by doing little actions motivated exclusively by a strong desire to please God.”

The way we nourish and stay in the presence of the one we love is continual short prayers throughout the day:
“…let us unite our life to divine love by the practice of brief, spontaneous prayers hundreds of times a day….If we constantly breathe words of love in order to remain close to God, then everything we do will be done in God and for God.”

Live fully in the Present Moment:
“Divine goodness has prepared this present moment of opportunity from all eternity. Embrace it. Do the good that waits to be done….Yield to God’s Providence.”

The genius of Francis De Sales is his understanding and appreciation of the everyday as the arena of our encounter with God, and finding ourselves embraced by our Beloved, in that context.

This last week, I ask you to review the previous weeks’ reflections. Note where you feel you would benefit from further reflection and/or practice. Notice the quotes or thoughts that struck and inspired you, as these are your special manna to nourish you along the way. For a lover’s lifestyle is developed, deepened, and practiced in the everyday details of each of our lives.

I hope this retreat has been helpful. It has been an honor to spend this time with you. Enjoy the delight God takes in you as God’s special beloved.

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