Dr. Dalton sliced open my wife's abdomen,
hunting the murderous tumor that
x-rays had revealed just days before.Kill it before it kills her:
that was the day's battle plan."I got the tumor," Dr. Dalton told me in the hallway three hours later.
"But the cancer has spread throughout her abdomen.""So what does that mean for us?""Susan has six months, maybe eight."* * *"This is a perishing and mortal life," wrote St Francis de Sales
to a new widow, "and death, which rules over it,
keeps no regular course. It seizes the good among the bad,
the young among the old."That morning, death seized my Susan,
and would not let go. But St. Francis,
who warned of death's caprice, had already
(in three sentences on the back of a holy card)
taught us how to understand it.
His meditation begins:The everlasting God has, in his wisdom,
foreseen from eternity the cross
that He now presents to you
as a gift from His inmost heart.* * *Dr. Dalton turned away.I walked to the window, leaned slowly forward,
gripped the sill tightly, and, with all my strength,
tried to see this cross as a gift,
but was only able to mumble,
"Thy will be done!"* * *St. Francis's meditation continues:This cross He now sends you
He has considered with His all-knowing eyes,
understood with His loving mind,
tested with His wise justice,
warmed with His loving arms,
and weighed with His own hands,
to see that it be not one inch too large
and not one ounce too heavy for you.* * *That conviction permeates all of Francis's letters.
To his friend Jane de Chantal, he wrote:
"For the honor of God, acquiesce entirely in God's will,
and by no means believe you can better serve Him otherwise;
for He is never well served save when
He is served as He wills."* * *Death closed in on Susan.
My faith wavered; she never doubted.
She saw her cross as God did:He has blessed it with His holy name,
anointed it with His grace,
perfumed it with His consolation,
taken one last glance at you and your courage,
and then sent it to you from Heaven,
a special greeting from God to you,
an alms of the all-merciful love of God.* * *Service gives life meaning, even when we falter.
So long as I could bring Susan food, brush her teeth,
wipe her face, hold her hand, talk with her and pray,
God was merciful and life was good.
Susan's last days were, in fact,
anointed with God's grace
and perfumed with His consolation.* * *On July 17th, the sun rose early and hot.Susan struggled for breath.
I squinted against the glare
and wiped the sweat from her face,
praying all the while.Then she was dead.Gone.And with her, God.* * *Although in 1767, Jane de Chantal's holiness led the Church
to proclaim her a saint, for decades she suffered
a similar desolation. Like me, she was convinced that
her sinfulness and weak faith had led God to abandon her.With just one letter, Francis lifted her desolation
. . . and mine. That same letter may help you
overcome your doubts, too.In it, Francis wrote (among other things):
"If a statue placed in a remote room could speak
and was asked, 'Why are you here?' it would answer,
'Because my master has put me here.'""What profit do you gain by being so?""It's not for my profit that I'm here;
it's to serve and obey the will of my master.""But you don't see him.""No. But he sees me, and takes pleasure
in seeing me where he has put me.""Wouldn't you like to be able to move
so you could go near him?""Certainly not, except when
he might command me.""Don't you want anything, then?""No; for I'm where my master has placed me,
and his good pleasure is the joy of my being."* * *"Thy will be done."With those four words, Francis became a saint . . .
and a saintmaker, drawing up to Heaven his friends
St. Vincent de Paul and St. Jane de Chantal.No wonder Pope Pius XI said,
"St. Francis seems to have been
sent especially by God. He was remarkable
not only for the holiness of his life, but for
the wisdom with which he directed souls."* * *So that you, too, may profit from Francis's wisdom,
I've gathered more than fifty of his best letters
into one small volume,
which I've entitled Thy Will Be Done!![Thy
Will Be Done! book cover]()
* * *Among them are the letters from which I quoted above,
as well as one that contains thoughts I first encountered
in a well-worn booklet by Padre Pio that I found
in Susan's purse after she died.
for the booklet fell open to it:"Why should you worry about whether
God wants you to reach the heavenly home
by way of the desert or by the fields,
when by the one as well as by the other,
one arrives all the same at a Blessed Eternity?"That passage in Padre Pio's booklet
helped sustain Susan in her last months.
And it's almost word-for-word the advice that
Francis gave Jane de Chantal in his Feb 18, 1605 letter,
four hundred years before Padre Pio was born!* * *Here is holy wisdom passed down
from Francis to Padre Pio to Susan to me
. . . and now, to you.May we each take it to heart, and use it
(along with the wisdom in Francis's other letters)
for the perfection and salvation of our souls!Please pray for me, and for Susan.John L. Barger, Publisher
Sophia Institute PressThy Will Be Done!
58 letters to souls troubled by problems that afflict each of us today:
anger, frustration, grief and sickness; difficulties praying
and even lack of faith ? with wise, practical remedies for each.by St. Francis de Sales
264 pages paperback, $14.95Sophia Institute Press
Box 5284, Manchester, NH 03108 USA
1-800-888-9344
1-603-641-9344
Further quotes from some of
the letters in Thy Will Be Done!"I will tell you that those crosses are best
which we have not chosen, and which are
less agreeable to us, or (to say it better)
those to which we have not much inclination."
Letter to St. Jane de Chantal
August 6, 1606"Our imperfection must accompany us to our coffin;
we cannot walk without touching earth.
We are not to lie or wallow there,
but still we are not to think of flying."
Letter to Mademoiselle de Soulfour
July 22, 1603"I cannot ask God anything for you
except that He would fashion your heart
in total accordance with His will,
in order to lodge and reign therein eternally.
Whether He do it with the hammer,
or with the chisel, or with the brush,
it is for Him to act according to His pleasure."
Letter to an Unnamed Woman
1610-1611"It is not possible that, while living in the world,
although we only touch it with our feet,
we are not soiled with its dust."
Letter to President Benigne Fremyot
October 7, 1604"My daughter, the love of God does not
consist in consolation, nor in tenderness.
Otherwise our Lord would not have loved His father
when He was 'sorrowful unto death,' and cried out,
'My Father, my Father, why hast Thou forsaken me?'
And it was exactly then that He made
the greatest act of love it is possible to imagine."
Letter to Sister de Blonay
Feb 18, 1618"My dearest daughter, we must not be unjust
and require from ourselves what is not in us.
When troubled in body and health,
we must not exact from our souls anything more
than acts of submission and acceptance of our suffering;
and holy unions of our will to the good pleasure of God."
Letter to an Unnamed Woman
1610-1611"As we must have patience with others, so we must with ourselves.
Those who aspire to the pure love of God have not so much need
of patience with others as with themselves. We must suffer
our imperfection in order to have perfection. I say suffer,
not love or pet; humility feeds on this suffering."
Letter to Mademoiselle de Soulfour
July 22, 1603"Let us only think of doing well today;
when tomorrow arrives it will be called
in its turn 'today,' and then we will think of it."
Letter to Mademoiselle de Soulfour
July 22, 1603"Have patience with everyone, but chiefly with yourself.
Do not trouble yourself about your imperfections,
and always have the courage to let yourself out of them.
I'm well content that you begin again every day:
there's no better way to protect the spiritual life
than always to begin again and never
to think you've done enough."
Letter to Madame de la Flechere
May 19, 1608
Thy Will Be Done!
58 letters to souls troubled by problems that afflict each of us today:
anger, frustration, grief and sickness; difficulties praying
and even lack of faith ? with wise, practical remedies for each.by St. Francis de Sales
264 pages paperback, $14.95Sophia Institute Press
Box 5284, Manchester, NH 03108 USA
1-800-888-9344
1-603-641-9344To unsubscribe please click here
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