St Francis de Sales - Finding God’s Will for You

Finding Gods Will for You

St. Francis de Sales

SOPHIA INSTITUTE PRESS
Manchester, New Hampshire

Finding Gods Will for You is an excerpt of Books 8 and 9 from St. Francis de Saless Treatise on the Love of God, translated by Rt. Rev. John K. Ryan, originally published in 1963 as an Image book by Doubleday and Company, Inc., Garden City, New York. This 1998 edition by Sophia Institute Press is published with the permission of the estate of John K. Ryan and contains minor editorial revisions and deletions throughout the text.

Copyright 1963; renewed 1991 Estate of John K. Ryan

This abridged edition Copyright 1998 Sophia Institute Press

Printed in the United States of America

All rights reserved

Cover design by Carolyn McKinney

Cover artwork: Phit 15 17 f.2v Psalter and New Testament:
David in prayer / Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, Florence, Italy / The Bridgeman Art Library International

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Francis, de Sales, Saint, 1567-1622.
[Trait de lamour de Dieu. Book 8-9. English] Finding Gods will for you / St. Francis de Sales.
p. cm.Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-918477-83-2 (alk. paper)
1. Spiritual life Catholic Church. 2. God Will. I. TitleBX2350.2.F69513 1998
241.4 dc2198-37143 CIP

Also available from
Sophia Institute Press
by St. Francis de Sales:

The Art of Loving God:
Simple Virtues for the Christian Life

Thy Will Be Done:
Letters to Persons in the World

Editors Note: The biblical references in the following pages are based on the Douay-Rheims edition of the Old and New Testaments. Where applicable, biblical quotations have been cross-referenced with the differing names and enumeration in the Revised Standard Version, using the following symbol: (RSV =).

Chapter One

Recognize the goodness of Gods will

Like good ground that has received seed and then in due season returns it a hundredfold,

Strive to grow in Gods likeness

This transformation is brought about imperceptibly by complacence. Once it has entered into our hearts, it produces another kind of complacence to give to Him from whom we received the first. It is said that in the Indies there is a little land animal that likes so much to be with fish in the sea that, by often swimming about with them, it finally becomes a fish itself and is changed completely from a land animal into a marine animal.

The example of those we love has a mild, imperceptible empire and an insensible authority over us: we must either leave them or imitate them. When a man is attracted by the sweet odor of perfume and enters a perfumers shop, he perfumes himself even while he receives the pleasure he takes in the smell of such odors. When he goes out, he gives others some of the pleasure he has received by spreading among them the scent of the perfume he has contracted. Along with the pleasure it takes in the thing loved, our heart attracts its qualities to itself. Delight opens up the heart, just as sorrow closes it. Hence Holy Scripture often uses the word enlarge as in the expression our heart is enlarged.

When a mans heart has been opened by pleasure, the impressions of the qualities on which the pleasure depends easily enter into his mind. Along with them, other qualities in the same subject, even though displeasing to us, inevitably gain entry into us amid the throng of pleasures, just as the man without a wedding garment got into the banquet along with those who were properly dressed.

To sum up, the pleasure we take in anything is a precursor that places in the lovers heart the qualities of the thing that pleases. Hence holy complacence transforms us into God, whom we love, and the greater the complacence, the more perfect the transformation. Thus, having great love, the saints are very quickly and perfectly transformed, since love transports and translates the manners and dispositions of one heart into another.

It is strange but true that when two lutes in unison that is, with the same sound and pitch are placed close together and someone plays one of them, although the other is untouched, it will not keep from sounding just like the one played on. The adaptation of one to the other is like natural love and produces this correspondence. We dislike imitating those we hate even in their good qualities. The Lacedaemonians would not follow the good counsel of an evil man unless some good man stated it after him.

On the contrary, we cannot help conforming ourselves to those we love. It is in this sense, I think, that the great apostle says that the law is not made for the just. In fact, the just man is not just unless he has holy love. If he has love, there is no need to urge him on with the rigor of the law, since love is a more cogent teacher and solicitor to persuade a heart possessing it to obey the will and intentions of its beloved. Love is a magistrate who exercises his authority without noise, without bailiffs or sergeants-at-arms, but merely by that mutual complacence whereby, just as we find pleasure in God, so also we reciprocally desire to please Him.

Love is the abridgment of all theology. In a most holy manner it turns into learning the ignorance of the Pauls, the Anthonys, that are his perfections in which I take pleasure. As for me, his dear sheep, I feed him with the milk of my affections, by which I strive to please him. Whoever truly takes pleasure in God desires faithfully to please God and, in order to please Him, desires to conform to God.

Learn to submit to Gods will

Complacence draws us into the mold of Gods perfections according as we are capable of receiving them. We are like mirrors that receive the suns image, not according to the perfection and vast extent of that great and wonderful luminary, but in proportion to the condition and size of its glass. It is thus that we are put into conformity with God.

Besides this complacence, the love of benevolence gives us this holy conformity in another way. Love of complacence draws God into our hearts, but love of benevolence projects our hearts into God and consequently all our actions and affections, which it most lovingly dedicates and consecrates to Him. Good will desires for God all the honor, all the glory, and all the recognition that can be rendered Him as a kind of external good due to His goodness.

In accordance with the complacence we take in God, this desire is practiced in the following manner. After we have taken very great complacence in seeing that God is supremely good, then by the love of benevolence, we desire that all forms of love that can possibly be imagined should be employed so as to love this goodness in a proper way. We have taken delight in the supreme excellence of Gods perfection, and as a result, we desire that He may be supremely loved, honored, and adored. We have rejoiced to consider that God is not only the first principle but also the last end, author, conserver, and Lord of all things. For this reason we desire that all things be subject to Him with supreme obedience. We see that Gods will is supremely perfect, right, just, and equitable. After this consideration, we desire that His will may be the supreme rule and law of all things, and that it may be followed, served, and obeyed by all other wills.

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