Introduction to the Devout Life
Part Four: Containing Needful counsels concerning some ordinary temptations.
16 December 2013
Reflections from English-Speaking group: Carlo Villegas, Elizabeth Mao, Rosita Joseph and Ruwantha Thirimanne
How to remedy minor temptations. (Part 4: 9)
The allusions used by St. Francis by way of using flies, gnats and biting insects is not only
figuratively interesting but also very easy to relate to in daily life. This portion of chapter four was picked out from the rest because it touched not so much the shared and common experience of temptations but moreover because it proposed solutions to this common phenomenon of temptations.
It is a fact of life that flies and gnats and probably other biting insects like mosquitoes do pester and annoy us. As a priest who encounters hundreds of occasions of people coming for advice how to get rid of an annoying person... how to forgive a family member who is a pain in the neck... how to cease getting angry at a person who always causes you to fall into anger, has hurt you most?
St. Francis proposed Patience and Gentleness to ward of petty temptations. And if a one stings you, without so much a fuss, simply remove the stinging critter and continue what you were doing. The advice of this priest was that every time such and such a person would have declared the
perennial “buzzing” for a human being who utterly annoys and provokes you. His advice was simple…
Counselee: (with tears and anger at times says) Father, I can't help but get frustrated and angry at my husband always. I do not know what to do anymore.
Priest: Let us pray for him.
Counselee: I tried that and it surely does not work.
Priest: Probably you prayed wrongly.
Counselee: Then please teach me how to pray.
Priest: Repeat after me.
Counselee: Okay.
Priest: Let us pray that he dies as soon as possible. Let us pray that that your husband may be taken from this world and be beside Jesus the soonest. You will have less annoyance from such person.
Counselee: (with a slight grin on the face says) No, father, that is bad. To wish someone to die is not a good prayer father.
Priest: Okay then, let us rephrase the prayer... Let us pray that YOU die soon and you go to Jesus sooner .
Counselee: (with a bigger grin says) That too is not so nice to do.
Priest: Saint Rita of Cassia prayed that her two sons be taken by Jesus soonest rather that they continue to carry out their intended revenge toward the those who murdered their father and end up in hell. And the Lord, granted this holy mother's request.
Counselee: For Real?
Priest: Yep! Now you can pray the same way, either you pray that Jesus takes your husband now or that Jesus takes you now.
Counselee: (with a bigger grin says) He is annoyingly bad but not that bad.
Priest: You see, a few minutes ago you were rattling mad at this person's annoying ways. Now you have shown that you value that there is goodness deep down in his heart and in your heart. You see what Patience can bring. Your heart has shown its true colors... You were born good. And so is he. And because of this prayerful patience of yours, your gentle ways will get the better of you.
Counselee: (in quiet, remained silent and now more calm and all smiles).
In hindsight, with more patience and gentleness as tool to fight against minor temptations, a third by product would inevitably be a good sense of humor.
Of Temptations, and the difference between experiencing them and consenting to them. (Part 4:3)
Temptations as we have learned and observed is amoral. They are neither good nor evil in themselves. Temptations however provide us this unique Opportunity to exercise the faculty of Human Choice. It gives us the chance to choose one from the other. We might even go further to say that temptation gives us the occasion to exercise our capacity to choose.
The devil more often proposes things that make our choosing (choices) difficult.
At the occasion of temptation Jesus not only assumed more energy to be stronger to fight the temptation at that moment but derived more experience to go up against more temptation for the future – upon going towards his Jerusalem, his Gethsemane and his Calvary.
Encouragement for the Tempted Soul. (Part 4:5)
It is human experience that tells us that daily life provides the environment and occasion for
choice making. In these ambient there are always a myriad of choices being made. Some choices are fruits of great and small decisions taken.
Reflecting on the choices and daily decisions that come with living consecrated life one must reference it to one's convictions, namely one's belief and principles that expresses our distinct personality and fruit of our formation to asceticism.
The proper discernment of Spirit ie. through adequate information, constructive discussion or dialogue and finally deliberations, helps us choose what would be ultimately beneficial for us and for others. The compulsion and desire to persevere in making, following up and living out the choices we have made requires great attention. The clear and mature intentionality helps sustains the soul despite of and in spite of temptation.
Of Sadness and Sorrow (Part 4:12)
Sadness and Sorrow are contrasted with Joy and Happiness.
Despite the clarity of thought of St. Francis of Sales stating that Sadness and Sorrow have a
Christian face too with mercy and repentance. The experience of Sadness and of Sorrow can be occasioned by isolation and thus develop into and experience of loneliness. The very idea of isolation presumes the absence of THE other - Being Alone. If we continue the narrative that once we are more often alone than with others, it is easily an occasion for more melancholy and thus more temptation.
St. Francis proposes prayer in times of melancholy, sadness and sorrow. He reiterates the definition of prayer as 'the lifting of the mind to God.' This apparent advice may seem tame and even considered indifferent to the seriousness of the matter. Yet however after some silence and reflection, there indeed is the viability and full rationality of the proposal to pray by St. Francis.
When one is in dialogue with God, one is preoccupied in listening, in conversing with the Lord. When this dialogue is with God, this prayer becomes not only in practice but in essence the very antidote to isolation, sadness and sorrow. When one is in true prayer with God, one is not alone anymore. And in fact, there is more occasion to Joy and to Happiness since one is never alone in prayer.
Summary by Carlo
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