Less controversy and more illustrative

Introduction to the Devout Life
Part III, Chapters 1-11
Group 1
(Steve, John, Rey, Cecilia, Tien)
20 October 2006

Less controversial than other chapter

More gentle – illustrates with comments

His maxims summarize his thoughts, e.g., “everyday life situation requires the practice of virtues”, or “don’t make a show that you are last unless you mean it.”

The core section of the book is on virtues: Humility – gentleness – kindness

Chap 6, pg. 157: humility makes us love our won abjection. Humility means voluntary acknowledgment of our abjection but also in loving it and take pleasure in it.

Pg. 159: “abjections most profitable to us and pleasing to God are those which happen to us by unforeseen events or by our condition of life.”

Individualism makes it difficult for us to obey or to subject our will to God. We need gratitude and trust in God, thus allowing person to accept the unforeseen events of life.

Important points of Salesian spirituality are gentleness and humility.

Chapter 3 on Patience, pg 145 3^rd paragraph

To accept criticism by the wicked is a man of courage but to accept it from friends or loved ones is true humility.

Criticism from the wicked is not always bad. There are truths in what they said.

Image of bees sting more than flies

Pg 177 compares chastity to the moth attracted to the flame – fanciful people get burn like the moth by the flame

Pg 164 on gentleness – image of olive oil

Pg 167 on anger: if one acts with anger, replace it with gentleness toward the same person

Unplanned and unconditional events teach us true humility. We begin with the interior. We cannot rush patience, for example, a person would like to have patience and he says to God, “God gives me patience and give me now.” The person just shows that he lacks great patience.

Francis de Sales learned from his own life. He faced his own struggles and temper, and he was able to keep them in check.

Tien

Leading a virtuous life

Introduction to the Devout Life
Part III, Chapters 1-11
Group 2 - Korean Language Group
(Jung Seung-Ku, JS Kim Jong-Soo, Michael Lee Chun-Seob, Oh Kwang-Cheol)
20October 2006

In this unit, our group focused on experiences of insensibility (chapter 2) and humility (chapters 4-7).

Three protestant students were surprised that Francis mentioned several mystery experiences, for example, ecstasies, raptures, experiences of insensibility, impassability, deific unions, levitations, transformations and other such perfections. Because many Korean protestants knew that catholic church had a formal faith rather than mystic experience. By explaining of chun-sup, we came to know that there are many movements of holy spirit in catholic church. As we know, Francis gave a good definition to us, that is, “such perfections are not virtues. Rather they are rewards which God gives for virtue.” That is very impressive and evangelical definition.

In Korea, some denominations emphasized on special experience strongly. For themselves, such special experiences are symbols of salvation. We think their thought were very dangerous. Many heresies came from them. Francis pointed out very exactly such attitudes. “Sometimes it happens that those who esteem themselves to be angels are not even good men and in fact than in their sentiments and deeds.”

Francis also explained about ‘humility’ using several chapters. Through his explaining, we can know his theology and attitude for christian life. He distinguished internal humility from external humility. External humility is almost something like vainglory. His expression for internal humility is very impressed to us.

“We often say that we are nothing, that we are misery itself and the refuse of the world. But we would be very sorry if anyone took us at our word and made public that we are such.”

“We pretend to wish to be the last, and seated at the lower end of the table, but it is only to pass to the top with greater advantage.” (P153)

“A truly humble person would like to be told that he is miserable, he is nothing, he is worthless, rather than he himself saying it. At least, if he knows that someone said it of him, he does not contradict it but accepts it with a good heart. (p154)

As further, he explained the difference of between humility and abjection.

Abjection is the littleness, lowliness and meanness whish is in us without our thinking of it. But the true virtue of humility is the real knowledge and voluntary recognition of our abjection.”(p157)

He concluded,

“The highest point of humility consists not only in the voluntary acknowledgment of our abjection but in loving it and taking pleasure in it.”

Here we can see the feature of saint. But that is not only himself. That is his guide to us for being a good Christian. Therefore all Christian who want to be good Christian must follow this guide, however, the road seems to be very difficult for us yet.

Seung-Ku

When we dwell in God's presence…

Introduction to the Devout Life
Part II, Chapters 10-21
Group 2 - Korean Language Group
(Jung Seung-Ku, JS Kim Jong-Soo, Michael Lee Chun-Seob, Oh Kwang-Cheol)
13 October 2006

Reading the Introduction to Devout Life by St. Francis de Sales, we see a sort of similarity between Jesus’ style of preaching as presented in the Gospel and Francis’ style of writing – the use of parables or metaphors. With the use of metaphors, many times drawn from realities and processes in nature, St. Francis helps us appreciate what spiritual life is about and understand concepts like prayer, sacraments, and communion of Saints in a practical way.

In the second part of the Philothea, chapter 10-21, St. Francis de Sales stresses on nurturing a kind of “spiritual sensitivity” or “spiritual sense”, i.e., a sense or awareness of God’s presence, creativity and providence. The purpose of prayer and sacramental life is to develop this “spiritual sense” in our daily life. However, prayer and the awareness of God’s presence should lead to practical resolutions, i.e., prayer and reflection must be fruitful, operative and practical in one’s daily life (prayer and praxis)

Philothea or the Introduction to the Devout Life is a simple book that speaks to us, making us reflect and repent, i.e., desire to renew our life. In this sense, it should not be read only with the mind. It must be read with the heart.

Michael

Frequenting sacraments

Introduction to The Devout Life
Part Two, Chapters 10-21 (pp. 85-100)
Group 1
(Steve, John, Rey, Cecilia, Tien)
13 October 2006

CREATE AN INTERIOR LIFE

Francis de Sales advocates doing various spiritual exercises to individuals in Chapters 10 – 21 of the “Introduction To The Devout Life.” St. Francis recommends daily prayer, weekly confession and frequenting the sacraments. Making spiritual exercises a daily habit will create a room in your heart for God and create a spiritual lifestyle for each of us with God at the center.

LIFESTYLE

While the “Introduction To The Devout Life” wasn’t written for children, it is impressive in it’s simplicity. The message provides common sense for the common person. This classic book should be read in daily doses rather than all at once. Taking each exercise one day at a time will help the individual build upon each spiritual exercise to create a “Devout Life”.

Asking the individual to be active, participation and devotional. One is not obliged to mention all of their venial sins during confession. But one should be sincerely sorry and regretful when promising not to repeat the wrongful action during confession. In fact, Francis de Sales recommends preparing for confession the night before to ensure the heart is ready for the sacrament.

DAILY LIFE

Likewise, our discussion mentioned that in St. Francis de Sales’ era, the church was the center of the town. The church bell would ring to announce the time, important events and emergencies. When one heard the frantic ringing of the Church bell, one should say a “Hail Mary” for the person that was in trouble. Likewise today, we should say a “Hail Mary” when we hear a siren for the individuals in trouble. This simple spiritual exercise provides empathy for the person and a reminder that we are all God’s children. As St. Francis de Sales recommends putting God at the center of our lives of each day. This simple act creates a spiritual exercise the will help build an individuals’ “Devout Life”.

Steve

In communion with the communion of saints

Introduction to The Devout Life
Part Two, Chapters 10-21 (pp. 85-100)
Group 1
(Anne, Tien An, Javier, Marcel, Julie)
13 October 2006

Prayer.

The goal of all our prayer is to bring us ,and to sustain us in the presence of God throughout the day. The sun of all spiritual exercises is the Mass.

Starting with our morning prayers we look ahead to see the pitfalls that may come our way that day. We make not only a deliberate resolve to avoid them, but we make a concrete plan to put our decisions into practice.

St. Francis teaches how we can live with the Communion of Saints here on earth and this can help to make our daily spiritual journey easier.

Confession.

Do not confess your sins with broad statements,accusations that are irrelevant but mention the reason for your fault,in this way the confessor will be better able to understand your inner dispisitions as regards sin.Also the length of time you have remained in your sin as there is a great difference between a fleeting vanity in your heart ,and one that's there for days.

Three Steps for Growth in Charity and Sin.

Inspiration, Pleasure in it, Concent to it.
Temptation, Delight in it, Concent to it

It is more hurtful to refuse our concent after taking pleasure in some inspiration than if we never welcomed it in the first place.

Anne and Co.

Wanting to be close to God

Introduction to The Devout Life
Part Two, Chapters 1 – 9 (pp. 85-100)
Group 1
(Steve, John, Rey, Cecilia)
6 October 2006

1. Prayer

Prayer of the mind and of the heart is really necessary for us if we want to be close to God. ‘As children learn to speak by constantly listening to their mothers and chattering to them’ (p.85), so we remaining close to Jesus makes us think, act and behave like Him. A baby can learn how to speak quickly if his/her parents/relatives speak to them often. A little boy imitates his father’s ways of doing because he is close to him and wishes to be like his father one day. A little girl is eager to try the cosmetics of her mother because she wants to be like her.

2. Rosary

We agree that the Rosary is a very helpful way of prayer. We shared that there are several ways of praying the Rosary such as with illustration of pictures, with the biblical images brought out, with meditation on the mysteries and with intentions to pray for the needs of the world. We can also pray the Rosary individually or in small groups.

3. Meditation

The method recommended in these chapters is very practical. However, we understood that the method is just to help. The main thing is to keep the good movements of the will. ‘…immediately after the preparation for meditation, your good movements of the will are wholly aroused towards God. At such times, give vent to them freely and do not try to follow the method….’

As long as we find sufficient inspiration, just go on very gently and without any hurry.
There is an insistence of transforming from the movement of wills to action. ‘…do not linger too long with these general good movements of the will. You have to change them into deliberate decisions, precise and particular…’ (p. 95) Just like after the Transfiguration, Jesus told the disciples not to linger to the blissful experience but to move on to the mission.
After all, we find there is a tune of to move gently, do not rush prayer, do not force it, just enter into the flow through out the process. It is the prayer moves to the Spirit.

4. Lectio Divina

Lectio Divina could be a kind of biblical inspiration. It is not a substitute of the meditation, but it helps a lot to the growth of our spiritual life.

Cecilia

Defining prayer

Introduction to the Devout Life
Part II, Chapters 1-9
Group 3
(Anne, Tien-An, Javier)
6 October 2006

Group discussion the second part of the Introduction to the Devout Life.

• St. Francis de Sales begins Part II by giving us a definition about prayer. He says, “Prayer is opening our understanding to God’s brightness and light, and exposing our will to the warmth of his love.” (Ch. 1, paragraph 1) According to him, there are two kinds of prayer: vocal and mental. The latter, however is strongly recommended. Francis would say that mental prayer is much more complicated but if we take time to learn and to do it properly, it will bring many good fruits and effects to flourishing our spiritual life. When comparing mental prayer to vocal prayer, the saint says, “In fact, the mental prayer you have made in their place is much more pleasing to God and of greater benefit to yourself.” (Ch. 1 paragraph 8)

• St. Francis has a great gift of using graphic language. In his writing, we find many concrete, simple, and practical examples that are easy to understand. For instance in chapter 5 paragraph 3, he writes, “As long as you find sufficient attraction, light and fruit in one of these reflections, stop there without moving on to another. Be like the bees who do not leave a flower as long as they find honey to gather there.” When he wants to challenge us to be concentrated and not to suddenly interrupt our holy and peaceful moment right after meditation, he gives us this example, “A man is given some liquid of great value to take home in a bowl of beautiful porcelain. He will walk carefully, not looking to one side or the other. He will look sometimes in front, for fear of tripping over a stone or making a false step. Sometimes, he will look at his bowl to see that it is not leaning to one side.” (Ch. 8 paragraph 4)

• St. Francis believes that after finishing the contemplation, we should come up with deliberate decisions and put them into practice. He strongly emphasizes that we put into practice what we have been contemplating, “Meditation is very often not only useless but even harmful. In fact, merely to meditate on virtues and not to practice them, sometimes makes our minds and our emotions swell with pride.” (Ch. 9 paragraph 1)

• Some of us are surprised that the act of oblation is one of the three acts of bringing the meditation to a close. “We offer to God his goodness and mercy, and death, the suffering… our own good movements of the will and our deliberate decisions.” (Ch. 7 paragraph 2) We believe that God’s goodness is far better than our own.

• We learn from these chapters about the virtue of perseverance in meditation. We like the quote in Genesis: “I will not let you go, Lord, unless you bless me.” (Gen. 32:26) Francis also convinces us not to worry, panic, and give up with our dryness sometimes. If it is necessary we can come to meditate with the attitude as if we were fulfilling our duty. Even when we have not found favor with God, we should keep in mind that “it is a very great honor indeed to be near God and be seen by Him.” (Ch. 9, last paragraph)

Tien An

Making meditation practical

Introduction to the Devout Life
Part II, Chapters 1-9
Group 2 - Korean Language Group
(Jung Seung-Ku, JS Kim Jong-Soo, Michael Lee Chun-Seob, Oh Kwang-Cheol)

1. Our group could reaffirm that Introduction to the Devout Life is the practical spiritual guide which can more closely lead prayers to God. Francis de Sales, in part II, chapters 1-9, introduces readers into the detailed practice of prayer from experiencing the presence of God to managing dryness in meditation. He not only explains the importance of the process of raising oneself to God by easy examples, but also proposes practical methods for meditation. Moreover, the verses in the Bible he shows for meditation may be very useful to prayers, especially, to beginners of meditation.

2. In Protestant tradition, we are not familiar with praying to our Guardian Angel and to the holy persons. By sharing opinions with each other, however, we could understand that by imagining holy persons in the Bible, it is possible to share the experience of heart and mind that they had at that time, and to allow ourselves to come closer to God today.

3. Francis stresses that meditation has to advance to making a deliberate decision and taking deliberate action. We were impressed by his teaching that the fruit of meditation is gained through the practice. Meditation is completed by practice in our life, and contemplation and life are not different from each other but the one reality. Therefore, meditation is not the spiritual refuge but the place of spiritual action for Christians who want to raise themselves to God.

Jongsoo

Language and cultural questions in a venerable text

Introduction to The Devout Life
Part One, Chapters 9-24
Group 1
(Steve, John, Rey, Cecilia, Tien)
29 September 2006

1. Chapter 11 (p. 55)

With the meditation on "God's Blessings", Francis reminds his readers to remember the bodily gifts God has bestowed on them in comparisonn to those who have been blessed with fewer, even far fewer, gifts: "those with defective bodies or weighed down in poverty, and those with weak minds who are stupid, insane, and foolish."

This seems to us to be very harsh language and sentiments from this gentle saint toward the "lesser-gifted" people of God. Perhaps, without meaning to disparage these unfortunates, Francis desires to have his blessed people be ever more grateful and responsive to the gifts that God has given them for their own benefit and that of others (Fr. O'Brien).

2. Chapter 20 (p. 73)

"The genuine declaration to impress upon oneself the decision to serve God…" Francis presents a lengthy, solemn, and very legalese series of sentences and paragraphs -- we must not forget he had two law degrees! Certainly these vow-like pledges are more from a prayer of dedication and more like a signed, binding contract. Such a formula underscores the serious nature of the commitment after a general confession and repentance.

3. From Chapater 23 (p. 79)

"We must purify ourselfs from attachment to useless and dangerous things", i.e., games, dances, feasts, plays, and pompous celebrations, not evil in themselves, but frequently done in excessive fashion and for extended periods of time. It's okay to get involved in these distractions to a limited degree avoiding excesses and undue attachments. Perhaps he had in mind the frequency and intensity of social involvement in his own times (Sr Cecilia).

The better choice

Introduction to the Devout Life
Part I, Chapters 9-24
Group 3
(Anne, Tien-An, Javier, Marcel)
29 September 2006

Group discussion of part one of the Introduction to the Devout Life, chapters 9-24:

1. The ten meditation of St. Francis invite us to begin with the reflection on our presence here on earth. We are originally created by God from nothing. God makes us only for the reason of sharing his glory, love, and grace. Human life is progressive, and we are now midway between heaven and hell. We are not stationary. We are moving forward. We should make our own decision now by choosing heaven for our final destination and move toward it.

2. We should choose God and heaven for it is a better choice. Only in God and heaven is there eternal happiness. This world is a just temporary and uncertain for we do not know when we will leave it. We, therefore, should not become attached to it. Yet our families and friends pose a problem. Shall we abandon them now? In responding this, Francis challenges us that we “shall not love them except with a holy friendship that will last forever.” (Introduction to the Devout Life, 1:13).

3. From chapter 19, we have a view about the Sacrament of Confession that is different from our common view. St. Francis shows the contrast between sin and the power of the sacrament. He argues that the scorpion’s poison is very dangerous; but if we make it into oil, it becomes very curable. Sin is disgusting when we commit it, but confessing our sins will please and honor God. In and through this sacrament, we listen to God, renew ourselves, and know ourselves better.

4. St. Francis points out a few reasons why we should not become attached to venial sin. First of all, venial sin displeases God. If we don’t want to do anything to offend God, we should stay away from venial sin. Secondly, though venial sin does not have power to kill our spiritual life, it gradually spoils our devout life and numbs all our senses so that we no longer desire to practice charity.

Tien An