The Spiritual Maxims of St. Francis de Sales

[Denise]

The providence of God is wiser than we.

Even though you may at the present moment feel strength sufficient to endure mortifications and humiliations, how do you know that you will always have it?

Do not desire crosses, save in proportion to the measure wherewith you have borne those that have already been sent you.

[Denise]

I should not have the courage to ask our Saviour by the pains which He had in His head, that I should have none in mine---I would rather use the crowning of Our Lord to obtain a crown of patience around my aching head.

We must not summon suffering into our hearts as our Lord did, for we cannot govern them as he did.

Huntsmen push into brambles, and often return more injured than the animal they intend to injure.

[Denise]

Just walk on uninterruptedly and very quietly; if God makes you run, He will enlarge your heart.

It is a great folly to wish to be wise with an impossible wisdom.

You can only give God what you have.

[Denise]

On Rash Judgements

Those who look well after their own consciences rarely fall into the sin of judging others.

If we judge ourselves we shall not be judged by God.

To find fault with our neighbor is to admit that we are not attentive of our responsibility for his wrong actions.

[Denise]

The business of finding fault is very easy, that of doing better very difficult.

We should have done worse than our fallen neighbor if God did not hold us by the right hand.

It is the part of a futile soul to busy herself with examining the lives of others.

[Denise]

He who could take away distraction from the world, would take away from it a great part of its sins and iniquities.

We accuse our neighbor for little, and we excuse ourselves in much.

Whatever we see our neighbor do we must always interpret his conduct in the best manner possible.

[Denise]

If it were possible for a neighbor's action to have a hundred different aspects, we should look at it in that aspect which is most favorable.

Support and greatly excuse your neighbor with great sweetness of heart.

My tongue, while I speak of my neighbor, is in my mouth, like a lancet in the hand of the surgeon who wishes to make and incision between the nerves and the sinews.

[Denise]

We cannot excuse the sin, at all events let us make it worthy of compassion, by attributing to it the most extenuating cause which it can have, such as ignorance or infirmity.

Since the goodness of God is so great that one single moment suffices to obtain and receive His grace, what assurance can we have that a man who was a sinner yesterday is so today?

Do not accuse or excuse yourself without proper consideration; if you accuse yourself without reason, you will become a coward, and if you excuse yourself without reason, you will become overconfident.

[Denise]

Chapter III

Man's True calling

God has many ways if calling His servants to himself.

In the creation God commanded the plants to bring forth their fruits each one after its kind.

[Denise]

Vocation

A good vocation is simply a firm and constant will which the called person has to serve God in the way and in the places to which the Almighty God has called him.

How foolish are those who waste time and thought in desiring to be martyred in the Indies, but do not apply themselves to the duties of their state in life.

Walk ever in the way of your vocation with simplicity, more intent on doing than on desiring; that is the shortest road.

[Denise]

The love of our parents, friends and benefactors is in itself according to God, yet we may love them in excess; as also our vocations, be they ever so spiritual.

God Himself will uphold you with the same hand with which He placed you in this vocation.

Any devotion which is in opposition to, or not in conformity with, man's true calling is not an authentic devotion.

[Denise]

Genuine devotion is consistent with every state of life. Like liquid poured into a container, it adapts itself to any shape.

Necessary employments, according to one's vocation, do not diminish Divine Love, but increase it.

Let Martha be active without criticizing Mary, let Mary be contemplate without despising Martha, for our Lord will always take the part of the one who is censured.

[Denise]

When charity draws some to poverty and withdraws others from it, when she directs some to marriage and others to continence, when she shuts one up in a cloister and makes another quit it, she is not bound to give an account thereof to anyone.

We must consider that there is no vocation which has not its irksomeness, its bitter-nesses, and disgusts.

God makes the lame and the blind to come to His banquet, to show us that two eyes and two legs are not needed for going to Paradise.

[Denise]

In order to have signs of a good vocation, it is not necessary to possess visible constancy, but it must reign effectively in the higher will.

Make a virtue of necessity.

If a person shows a firm and persevering determination to serve God in the manner and place to which His divine Majesty calls her, she gives the best proof we can have that she has a true vocation.

[Denise]

Neither widowhood nor virginity has any place in heaven but that which is assigned to them by humility.

While one is busying oneself to seek out what often is not one's vocation, one omits what would render us perfect in that which we have embraced.

We must love what God loves; now He loves our vocation.