Rector’s Reflections
Monday 1st July 2024
A Spiritual Classic from the Seventeenth Century
Last week, I shared some general thoughts on a spiritual classic by St Francis de Sales, entitled Introduction to the Devout Life, although this was first published as long ago as 1609, it has retained its relevance and interest ever since.
I thought it might be helpful to share a few brief extracts from the book, in order to give you a flavour of the book as a whole. As you might expect, many different editions are available. I will be using an edition published in London in 1906, translated and edited by Revd. Thomas Barns. However, I will provide the reference to the original text, so that you should be able to find the passage in whatever edition you might happen to be using yourself. On rare occasions, I will edit the text to make it easier to read; I will indicate when I have done so.
The Introduction begins as follows:
“You aspire to devotion, dearest reader [the original text has “Philothea”], because being a Christian you know that it is a virtue exceedingly well-pleasing to the Divine Majesty. But in as much as the little faults which we commit at the beginning of any matter increase infinitely as it goes on, and are almost irreparable at the end, you should know before all things what is the nature of devotion. For as there is a true devotion and a great deal which is false and vain, if you do not which is the true, you may be mistaken, and spend your time in following some devotion which is foolish and superstitious”. {Part 1, Chapter 1].
This is a surprisingly hard-hitting introduction to a work on living the spiritual life. It is making two key points.
To begin with, it is saying that in the spiritual life, as in much else, we don’t necessarily get better simply with the passage of time. We are all aware of our imperfections and faults as Christians. But we might be hoping that over the years, these faults will gradually fall away. Francis reminds us that actually things don’t necessarily turn out like this: the little faults we have a the beginning tend to remain with us, and indeed they tend to increase and become so embedded in our lives that it gets harder and harder to eradicate them. Our faults are like weeds with a tap root: the longer we leave the weed, the deeper the taproot grows, and the harder it gets to remove them. So Francis is telling us that we need to be intentional about improving our spiritual lives: it’s not going to happen by itself. We need to look at how we can tackle the “little faults”, because before we know it, they will “increase infinitely”, and become “almost irreparable”. To adapt a proverb, we might say: “mighty sins from little faults grow”.
In other words, Francis is telling us: don’t let your spiritual life drift. Do something to tackle the “little faults” before they become big faults, which cause damage to ourselves, our families and the world around us.
The second point Francis makes is to point out that not all spiritual practices are commendable: “there is a true devotion and a great deal which is false and vain”. Francis adds that there is some “devotion which is foolish and superstitious”. Francis wishes to guide us away from spiritual practices which are in fact false, foolish or superstitious, and towards spiritual practices which are true and praise-worthy. He will explain more about this later in the book, but the basic point is important, especially in our contemporary world. It is my experience that in today’s church, it is rare indeed for any spiritual teacher to raise the possibility that some spiritual practices are undesirable because they are “foolish and superstitious”. In the contemporary spiritual world, even within the Church of England, the general mantra is “anything goes”. There is a positive side to this approach: it is welcoming and inclusive, and allows God to be found outside the traditions of formal religion. But there is a negative side , too: it divorces spiritual practice from any meaningful engagement with the concept of Truth or Goodness. Francis challenges us to re-connect the world of Spirituality with the world of Truth and Goodness. Francis would tell us that whatever we might like to think, and however inclusive we might like to be, the bottom line is that some so-called Chrisian spirituality is “false”, “foolish” and “superstitious”. Challenging words indeed.
I wonder what you think about these ideas? Does our spiritual life improve with the passing of the years, or do we find that what happens is that our spiritual faults become harder and harder to shift? And are we happy with the idea that some of our cherished devotional practices might turn out to be “foolish and superstitious”?
Whether you agree with Francis or not, his words at least get us thinking about the realities of our spiritual lives. That that is all for the good.
In tomorrow’s reflections, we shall look at what Francis might have to say about what “true” devotion might look like.