Holy Thoughts

“...as says St. Augustine, everything in the world speaks silently but clearly to the lovers of God of their love, exciting them to holy desires, whence gush forth aspirations and loving cries to God. St. Gregory Nazianzen tells his flock, how, walking along the seashore, he watched the waves as they washed up shells and sea weeds, and all manner of small substances, which seemed, as it were, rejected by the sea, until a return wave would often wash part thereof back again; while the rocks remained firm and immoveable, let the waves beat against them never so fiercely. And then the Saint went on to reflect that feeble hearts let themselves be carried hither and thither by the varying waves of sorrow or consolation, as the case might be, like the shells upon the seashore, while those of a nobler mould abide firm and immoveable amid every storm;—whence he breaks out into David’s cry, ‘Lord, save me, for the waters are gone over my soul; deliver me from the great deep, all Thy waves and storms are gone over me;’ for he was himself then in trouble by reason of the ungodly usurpation of his See by Maximus.

When St. Fulgentius, Bishop of Ruspe, heard Theodoric, King of the Goths, harangue a general assembly of Roman nobles, and beheld their splendour, he exclaimed, ‘O God, how glorious must Thy Heavenly Jerusalem be, if even earthly Rome be thus!’ And if this world can afford so much gratification to mere earthly lovers of vanity, what must there be in store hereafter for those who love the truth?

‘If thus Thy lower works are fair,—If thus Thy glories gild the span of ruined earth and guilty man,—How glorious must the mansions be where Thy redeemed dwell with Thee!’ We are told that St. Anselm of Canterbury, (our mountains may glory in being his birthplace) was much given to such thoughts. On one occasion a hunted hare took refuge from imminent death beneath the Bishop’s horse, the hounds clamouring round, but not daring to drag it from its asylum, whereat his attendants began to laugh; but the great Anselm wept, saying, ‘You may laugh forsooth, but to the poor hunted beast it is no laughing matter; even so the soul which has been led astray in all manner of sin finds a host of enemies waiting at its last hour to devour it, and terrified, knows not where to seek a refuge, and if it can find none, its enemies laugh and rejoice.’ And so he went on his way, sighing.

Constantine the Great wrote with great respect to St. Anthony, at which his religious expressed their surprise. ‘Do you marvel,’ he said, ‘that a king should write to an ordinary man? Marvel rather that God should have written His Law for men, and yet more that He should have spoken with them Face to face through His Son.’ When St. Francis saw a solitary sheep amid a flock of goats; ‘See,’ said he to his companion, ‘how gentle the poor sheep is among the goats, even as was Our Lord among the Pharisees;’ and seeing a boar devour a little lamb, ‘Poor little one,’ he exclaimed, weeping, ‘how vividly is my Saviour’s Death set forth in thee!’

A great man of our own day, Francis Borgia, then Duke of Candia, was wont to indulge in many devout imaginations as he was hunting. ‘I used to ponder,’ he said, ‘how the falcon returns to one’s wrist, and lets one hood its eyes or chain it to the perch, and yet men are so perverse in refusing to turn at God’s call.’ St. Basil the Great says that the rose amid its thorns preaches a lesson to men. ‘All that is pleasant in this life’ (so it tells us mortals) ‘is mingled with sadness—no joy is altogether pure—all enjoyment is liable to be marred by regrets, marriage is saddened by widowhood, children bring anxiety, glory often turns to shame, neglect follows upon honour, weariness on pleasure, sickness on health. Truly the rose is a lovely flower,’ the Saint goes on to say, ‘but it moves me to sadness, reminding me as it does that for my sin the earth was condemned to bring forth thorns.’

Another devout soul, gazing upon a brook wherein the starlit sky of a calm summer’s night was reflected, exclaims, ‘O my God, when Thou callest me to dwell in Thy heavenly tabernacles, these stars will be beneath my feet; and even as those stars are now reflected here below, so are we Thy creatures reflected above in the living waters of Thy Divine Love.’ So another cried out, beholding a rapid river as it flowed, ‘Even thus my soul will know no rest until it plunge into that Divine Sea whence it came forth!’ St. Frances, as she knelt to pray beside the banks of a pleasant streamlet, cried out in ecstasy, ‘The Grace of my Dear Lord flows softly and sweetly even as these refreshing waters’ And another saintly soul, looking upon the blooming orchards, cried out, ‘Why am I alone barren in the Church’s garden!’ So St. Francis of Assisi, beholding a hen gathering her chickens beneath her wings, exclaimed, ‘Keep me, O Lord, under the shadow of Thy Wings’ And looking upon the sunflower, he ejaculated, ‘When, O Lord, will my soul follow the attractions of Thy Love?’ And gathering pansies in a garden which are fair to see, but scentless, ‘Ah,’ he cried out, ‘even so are the thoughts of my heart, fair to behold, but without savour or fruit!’

Thus it is, my daughter, that good thoughts and holy aspirations may be drawn from all that surrounds us in our ordinary life. Woe to them that turn aside the creature from the Creator, and thrice blessed are they who turn all creation to their Creator’s Glory, and make human vanities subservient to the truth. ‘Verily,’ says St. Gregory Nazianzen, ‘I am wont to turn all things to my spiritual profit.’”

~St. Francis de Sales (from Introduction to the Devout Life)