The Spiritual Maxims of St. Francis de Sales

[Denise]

Riches prick us with a thousand troubles in getting them, as many cares in preserving them, and yet with more anxieties in spending them, and with grief in losing them.

Peace is better than fortune.

[Denise]

On Prayer and Recollection of the Mind

Prayer must be loved, but it must be loved for the love of God.

There is much to fear in exalted methods of prayer, but one can walk securely in the more common.

The desire we have to obtain divine love makes us meditate, but love obtained makes us contemplate.

[Denise]

Your way is good and there is nothing to object to, save that you go on considering your steps too much, for fear of falling.

Meditation produces good movements in the will or loving part of your soul.

If you have the gift for mental prayer, always reserve for that the principal place above private vocal prayers.

[Denise]

In striving to raise our reasonings too high in divine things by curiosity we grow empty in out thoughts, and instead of arriving at the knowledge of truth, we fall into the folly of our vanity.

It is better to sleep upon the Sacred Breast than to watch elsewhere, wherever it may be.

The grace of meditation cannot be gained by any effort of the mind; but there must be a gentle and humble perseverance.

[Denise]

If in prayer the Holy Spirit gives you the affection before the consideration, you should not make the consideration, since it is only made to stir up the affection.

Spend an hour in meditation every day.

Holy Church does not teach us to pray for ourselves in particular, but always for ourselves and for our Christian brethren.

[Denise]

Always say we and us as Our Lord has taught us in the Pater Noster, in which there is no mine or my or me.

Let all meditations on the "last four things" end always with hope and confidence.

Consider what God is doing and what you are doing.

[Denise]

If it please God to give us affections without reasonings or considerations, it is for us a great grace.

If while saying your vocal prayers, you feel your heart drawn to interior prayer, do not resist the attraction.

[Denise]

On Recollection of the Heart

Recollection of the heart is not made by the preparation of love, but by love itself.

The chief exercise of prayer is to speak to God and to hear God speak in the bottom of your heart.

Always distinguish clearly between the workings of the higher part of your soul and those of the lower.

[Denise]

The sacred gift of prayer is already in the right hand of the Saviour; as soon as ever you shall have emptied yourself of self, He will pour it into your heart.

He who is praying to God notices that he is praying, is not perfectly attentive to prayer.

The best prayer is that which keeps us so well employed in God that we think not of ourselves or of what we are doing.

[Denise]

If you reflect and bring your eyes backward upon yourself to see how you look when you look upon God, it is not now He that you behold, but your own behavior---yourself.

There are souls that cannot pause and fix their thoughts on any special mystery, being attracted to a certain simplicity which keeps them in perfect tranquility before God, with no other consideration than the knowledge that they are before Him and that He is their only good.

In prayer of quiet, the contentment of the will is to admit no other contentment but that of being without contentment for the love of the good pleasure of its God.

[Denise]

The height of love's ecstasy our will not in its own contentment but in God's.

What good does a soul get from being ravished unto God by prayer, if in its conversation and life it is ravished away by earthly, low and natural affections?

When we see a soul that has raptures in prayer and yet no ecstasy in her life, these raptures are exceedingly doubtful and dangerous.

[Denise]

There was never a saint but has had the ecstasy of life and operation.

He who in his rapture has more light in the understanding to admire God, than heat in the will to love Him, is to stand upon his guard.

If the ecstasy of love be more beautiful than good, more bright than warm, more speculative than affective, it is deserving of suspicion.

[Denise]

The secret of secrets in prayer is to follow attractions in simplicity of heart.

Think no more about the unity which God has made in you, nor your heart, nor your soul, nor anything whatsoever.

[Denise]

On Distractions

The smallest distraction does not withdraw your soul from God, for nothing withdraws us from God but sin.

Wolves and bears are certainly more dangerous than flies, but they do not cause us so much annoyance, nor do they exercise our patience so much.

Flies do not trouble us with their strength, but by their number.

[Denise]

We fight the monsters of Africa in imagination, and from lack of attention we allow ourselves in reality to be killed by little serpents that lie in our way.

We want our prayer to be steeped in orange-flower water, and we would be virtuous in eating sugar.

Do not permit your spirit to consider miseries, let God work; He will make something good of it.