Panning for spiritual gold

Introduction to the Devout Life
Part III – Chapters 14-30
Friday November 3, 2006
Group 2 (Thien-An, Anne, Marcel, Javier)

1. St. Francis believes that true friendship is a small virtue that which we need for our societal life. According to him, there are two kinds of friendship: true friendship and vain friendship. We must love our friends in spite of their imperfection, yet we must neither love nor receive his imperfection. Going further the saint uses the image of people who shift the gravel of the river Tagus. They separate the gold from the sand. Then they leave the sand on the river but only take gold with them. In the same way, he says, “those who commune in a good friendship, ought to separate the sand of imperfections and should not allow it to enter their spirit” (Ch. 22, 3rd paragraph)

2. No one is an island. We live in the society that contains the mixture of good and evil. On one hand, we need to courageously and firmly reject and stay away from all evil just as the bees are turn aside from the swarm of horse-flies and hornets. On the other hands, there are some good qualities that are valuable and useful that we can share from the devout and virtuous people in the social gatherings. The saint is using two images to show us. He says that “the vine planted among olive trees bears oily grapes which have the taste of olives… Drones alone are not able to make honey, but they help the bees to make it.” (Ch. 24. 2nd paragraph and 5th paragraph)

3. For the individuals, the saint reminds us that we should neither listening to evil words from our neighbors nor saying bad words to them. Rather the saint advises us to be sincere and respectful when we speak to our neighbors. He quotes that, “it is said that those how have eaten the herb called angelica (Aromatic plant used in cooking) always have a pleasant and agreeable breath. Those who have the angelic virtue of modesty and chastity in their hearts always speak pure, polite and suitable words.” (Ch. 27, 2nd paragraph)

4. St. Francis also convinces us not to be very careful when slandering our neighbor and listening to the slanderers. He reminds us that king David once comparing the slanderers as the tongue of a serpent. “The serpent’s tongue is forked and has two points … he poisons the ear of the listener as well as the reputation of the person of whom he is speaking.” (Ch. 29, 5th paragraph)

Our group also talk about how we act our charity is much more important than what we practice charity. St. Louis is a good model of this. He is not only feeding the poor, but he is seating and eating with them, having conversation with them. St. Elizabeth dresses like the poor and mingles among them to share the life of the poor.

One of the signs of an authentic friendship is we see that we grow in morality. We are called to love everyone, but we only have one or very few true friendship. The reason of that is not because we are selfish, but we all are weak and fragile. We need others’ support that we can be persevere to follow God.

Thien-An