Tuesday, January 24, 2023
Memorial of Saint Francis de Sales, Bishop and Doctor of the Church
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
For the love of God, the Lord of laughter
I have waited, waited for the Lord, and he stooped toward me. He put a new song into my mouth, a hymn to our God.
Francis de Sales knew he was headed for hell. He was 19 years old, and a theological discussion convinced him God had not chosen him. He fell into despair.
John Calvin’s ideas about predestination were just coming into vogue, a few decades after the Protestant Reformation began in earnest. Those ideas overtook and convinced de Sales that his life disgusted God. By the end of the year, however, he was persuaded to pray through his fear and shame, which he did before a famed Black Madonna statue in Paris.
His father had planned a military and legal career for him, but he dedicated himself to Mary and made a vow of chastity. From Wikipedia:
“De Sales ultimately concluded that God had good in store for him, because ‘God is love,’ as John’s first epistle attests. His faithful devotion to God not only expelled his doubts but also influenced the rest of his life and his teachings. His way of teaching Catholic spirituality is often referred to as the Way of Divine Love.
Can you imagine? What a celebration on this day of realization that God is love, and therefore hell is not in the picture. There is no fear in love. And that for Francis too! Francis de Sales knew he fell headlong sometimes into sin, like those around him. And he knew without doubt that he had a great high priest who had been through the darkness without sinning, and could invite him into his own personal de Sales darkness, and Francis could follow him without fear, lit from within and without by God’s love.
We have been consecrated through the offering of the Body of Jesus Christ once for all.
George MacDonald wrote many “Unspoken Sermons.” Here he rejoices with his Father:
When a man is true, if he were in hell he could not be miserable. He is right with himself because right with Him from whence he came. To be right with God is to be right with the universe: one with the power, the love, the will of the mighty Father, the cherisher of joy, the Lord of laughter, whose are all glories, all hopes, who loves everything and hates nothing but selfishness.
When the joyous music of Mozart plays, when a father of many sons and daughters like MacDonald knows God as God of laughter, when Jesus not only drinks wine but makes it out of water at a wedding, then we know there is no fear in love. There is only love. The dirt, dis-ease and dissolution around us notwithstanding, the world is a wonderful place, made by God for us, and it is right to be happy.
I do not restrain my lips, as you know, O Lord. I make no secret of your kindness and your truth in the vast assembly.
(Hebrews 10, Psalm 40, Matthew 11, Mark 3)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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