March 2 through March 8, 2025
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(March 2, 2025: Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time)
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“Praise no one before he speaks, for it is then that people are tested.”
Francis de Sales dedicated five chapters in his Introduction to the Devout Life to the subject of conversation. The fact that he would devote so much attention to this topic speaks to the importance – and the impact – of words. Francis wrote:
“Physicians learn about a person’s health or sickness by looking at his tongue. In like manner, our words are a true indication of the state of our souls. ‘By your words you will be justified and by your words you will be condemned,’ says the Savior. We quickly move our hand to the pain we feel and our tongue to what we like. If you are truly in love with God, you will often speak of God in familiar conversation with your servants, friends and neighbors.’ The mouth of the just man shall meditate on wisdom and his tongue shall speak of judgment. Just as bees extract with their tiny mouths nothing but honey, so your tongue should always be sweetened with its God and find no greater pleasure than to taste the praise and benediction of his holy name flowing between your lips.” (IDL, Part 3, Ch. 26)
Spend just a few hours watching cable television and/or surfing social media and you’ll notice that there is no shortage of words on the airways and the Internet. These words may tell us a great deal about the people speaking them; these words may also tell us a great deal about the nature of our culture. Note the level of volume, shouting, harshness, suspicion and divisiveness that characterizes so much of our conversations – if you can call them that – these days.
Remarkable how prescient Francis de Sales’ advice sounds four hundred years ago given the context in which we live today.
“To speak little – a practice highly recommended by ancient sages – does not consist in uttering only a few words but in uttering none that are useless. With regard to speech, we must not look to the quantity but rather to the quality of our words. It seems to me that we ought to avoid two extremes. To be too reserved and to refuse to take part in conversation looks like lack of confidence in the others or some sort of disdain. To be always babbling or joking without giving others time or chance to speak when they wish is a mark of shallowness and levity.” (IDL, Part 3, Ch. 30)
Let’s be clear – words are not just words. They can shape and create reality, for better or for worse. How righteous are our words? What do our words tell others about the state of our soul? What do our words tell us about the health of our heart?
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(March 3, 2025: Katherine Drexel, Founder and Religious)
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“You shall not…You shall.”
Today’s Gospel reminds us that being children of God comes with its share of “dos” and “don’ts.”
The “don’ts” include You shall not kill; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not steal; you shall not bear false witness; you shall not defraud; The “do’s” include, Honor your father and your mother.
During the season of Lent, it is customary for people to focus on not doing the “don’ts” of life. In the Salesian tradition, however, we’re probably better off pursuing the “dos” of God’s Kingdom as a more effective remedy for the “don’ts.” For example, why settle for giving up lying when we can tell the truth? Why promise to stop being stingy when we can redouble our efforts to be generous? Why refrain from stealing when we can commit ourselves to being honest? Why do we merely turn away from hatred when we can turn toward healing? Why simply renounce revenge when we can accomplish much more with reconciliation?
So, how will you use our time and energy today? By avoiding life’s “don’ts” or by doing life’s “dos?”
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(March 4, 2025: Casimir, Prince)
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“With each contribution show a cheerful countenance and pay your tithes in a spirit of joy. Give to the Most High as he has given to you, generously, according to your means.”
In the Preface I from the former Sacramentary for the Eucharistic Prayer for the season of Lent, we hear:
“For by your gracious gift each year your faithful await the sacred paschal feasts
with the joy of minds made pure, so that, more eagerly intent on prayer and on the works of charity.”
People associate the season of Lent with all kinds of experiences: sacrifice, self-denial, self-discipline, penitence, sorrow and suffering, just to name a few. The experience of joy probably wouldn’t appear anywhere near the top of most peoples’ list…if at all. But indeed, Lent can be a joyful season, provided that we understand the nature and the basis of authentic Christian joy: striving to be the best version of yourself.
In a letter to her brother Andre Fremyot, the Archbishop of Bourges, Jane de Chantal wrote the following:
“Try to perform all your actions calmly and gently. Keep your mind ever joyful, peaceful and content. Do not worry about your perfection, or about your soul. God, to whom it belongs, and to whom you have completely entrusted it, will take care of it and fill it with all the graces, consolations and blessings of His holy love in the measure that they will be useful in this life…” (LSD, page 203)
How might we keep our minds joyful during the season of Lent? How about by beginning each and every day of Lent by recalling all that God – in his mercy, generosity and love – has done for you! Consider who God has made you, and who God continues to call you to be.
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(March 5, 2025: Ash Wednesday)
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Lent is a time when each of us is challenged to recognize our need for conversion. We are invited to closely examine our relationship with God, ourselves and one another. Simply put, Lent asks us to name those sins, vices, weaknesses -- anything -- that may prevent us from growing in thought, word and deed in our God-given dignity.
A popular way of ritualizing this inner journey is to "give up" something for Lent. Some refrain from tobacco; others eschew alcohol; still others pass up all desserts. Some of us may give up something good during Lent; some of us may give up something bad during Lent, and still others may give up a combination of both.
Using traditional language, Lent is a time for fasting. Fasting, however, is only half of the story. Lent, in its fullest expression, is also a season for feasting!
In their book A Sense of Sexuality, (Doubleday 1989) Drs. Evelyn and James Whitehead remind us that "fasting, at its finest, is neither solely punishment nor denial. We fast not only to avoid evils but to recapture forgotten goods." Put another way, “the 'no' of fasting is fruitful only if we have some deeply valued 'yes' in our life." The arduous discipline of feasting complements our fasting; we need not only something to fast from but also something to fast for.
That's right. Feasting requires no less discipline than fasting. The discipline of feasting celebrates well and heartily the God-given blessings that we enjoy without engaging in selfishness and excess.
Lent, then, is as much a matter of “doing” as it is of "doing without". St. Francis de Sales wrote in his Introduction to the Devout Life:
“Both fasting and working mortify and discipline us. If the work you undertake contributes to the glory of God and to your own welfare, I much prefer that you should endure the discipline of working than that of fasting.”
He continued:
“One person may find it painful to fast, another to serve the sick, to visit prisoners, to hear confessions, to preach, to assist the needy, to pray, and to perform similar exercises. These latter pains have as much value as the former.”
Whether through fasting or feasting, turning away from sin or turning toward virtue, these forty days of Lent are about our “insides”: our heart, mind, thoughts, feelings, attitudes, hopes and fears. It is the journey of the soul and spirit. “As for myself,” says Francis de Sales, “it seems to me that we ought to begin with the interior.”
And so we pray: God give us the grace to make a new beginning with the first of these forty days....and with every day that will follow hereafter.
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(March 6, 2025: Thursday after Ash Wednesday)
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“If you are led astray and serve other gods…you will certainly perish…”
Other gods – idols – are defined as “an object of extreme devotion”. In his Introduction to the Devout Life, Francis de Sales cautions us from going to extremes when it comes to fasting or any other form of devotion. Beginning with a quote from St. Jerome, he wrote:
“’Long, immoderate fasts displease me very much…I have learned by experience that when an ass’ foal grows tired, it tends to wander away,’ meaning that those who are weakened by excessive fasting easily turn to soft living. Stags run poorly in two situations – when they are too fat and when they are too lean. We are very exposed to temptation both when our bodies are too pampered and when they are too run down, for the one makes the body demanding in its softened state and the other desperate in affliction. Just as we cannot support the body when it is too fat, so, too, it cannot support us when it is too thin. Lack of moderation in fasting and other forms of austerity makes many people’s best years useless for the service of charity. After all, the more some people mistreat the body in the beginning, the more they tend to pamper it in the end. Wouldn’t people do better to have a program that is balanced and in keeping with the duties and tasks their state in life obliges them to do?” (IDL, Part III, Chapter 23, p. 185)
A word of advice: When it comes to fasting of the body, the mind, the soul or spirit, avoid the temptation of going to extremes.
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(March 7, 2025: Friday after Ash Wednesday)
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“This is the fasting that I wish…”
In his Introduction to the Devout Life, Francis de Sales wrote:
“Both fasting and labor mortify and subdue the flesh. If your work is necessary for you to contribute to God’s glory, I much prefer that you endure the pains of work rather than of fasting. Such is the mind of the Church, for it exempts those who are working in the service of God and our neighbor even from prescribed fasts. One mind finds it difficult to fast, another to take care of the sick, visit prisoners, hear confessions, preach, comfort the afflicted, pray and perform similar tasks. These last sufferings are of far greater value than the first. In addition to disciplining the body, they produce much more desirable fruits…” (IDL, Part III, Chapter 23, p. 186)
And what are these “more desirable fruits”? Isaiah names a few: “releasing those bound unjustly, untying the thongs of the yoke, setting fee the oppressed, breaking every yoke, sharing your bread with the hungry, sheltering the oppressed and the homeless, clothing the naked when you see them, and not turning your back on your own.”
Today, what is the kind of fasting that God may wish from us? The answer: the sacrifice, discipline and self-mastery that come more from focusing on what we can try to do, rather than on what we can try to do without.
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(March 8, 2025: Saturday after Ash Wednesday)
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"If you remove from your midst oppression, false accusation and malicious speech…light shall rise for you in the darkness..."
In his Introduction to the Devout Life, Francis de Sales wrote:
“Your language should be restrained, frank, sincere, candid, unaffected and honest. B eon guard against equivocation, ambiguity or dissimulation. While it is not always advisable to say everything that is true, it is never permissible to speak against the truth. You must become accustomed never to tell a deliberate lie whether to excuse yourself or for some other purposes, remembering always that God is the ‘God of truth.’ As the sacred word tells us, the Holy Spirit does not dwell in a deceitful or slippery soul. No artifice comes close to being so good and desirable as plain dealing …” (IDL, Part III, Chapter 30, p. 206)
Whether in fasting from telling lies – or being committed to telling the truth – what steps can we take today to make the light rise a bit higher and brighter in the darkness for ourselves and others by the type of speech we choose to speak?
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