One of my favorite saints is St. Francis de Sales (and not just because he is the patron saint of writers). During his lifetime, he wrote a great deal of wise advice and practical encouragement for the ordinary person seeking to grow closer to God. His advice strikes just the right balance between not allowing for excuses to hold us back from a life of virtue, while acknowledging our imperfections and not veering toward scrupulosity. He tells us:
Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections.
Never be in a hurry; do everything quietly and in a calm spirit. Do not lose your inner peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset.
Have patience with all things, but first of all with yourself.
—St. Francis de Sales
When we wish to grow in the spiritual life, an important step is to cultivate habits that will direct us toward a life of prayer, work, and virtue. But sometimes the New-Year’s-resolution mindset of trying to overhaul our whole lives at once can do more damage than good. We come up with all kinds of lofty spiritual goals—more time for prayer, daily Mass, more community service, more spiritual reading—then when we fail to follow through on them, we become discouraged and give up entirely.
The key to making true progress in the spiritual life is acknowledging that without God’s help, we won’t be able to improve ourselves at all. We are helpless without Him. All we can do is offer Him what we have, be receptive to His will, and wait for Him to do His work in us. Pride can lead us to think that we can build Rome in a day within our souls, that everything depends on our own plans. But ultimately, everything depends on God.
So how can we begin to form habits that will stick? The key is to start small instead of biting off more than we can chew. Perhaps we still have a long-term list of lofty goals, but in order to get there, we have to handle some smaller challenges first. No one would recommend picking up the heavyweights on your first day at the gym—you would start with something lighter and work your way up. In the same vein, we should be honest about how much “weight” we can realistically handle, challenging ourselves to take on a little more to strengthen our spiritual muscles, but not so much that we won’t be able to lift it at all.
Sometimes it can be overwhelming to realize how much disorder there is in the world and how inadequate we feel in responding to it. I read the lives of the saints, and I feel so humbled, knowing that I have so far to go in comparison. But we can’t let that feeling of unworthiness hold us back from doing anything at all. We have gifts to offer, even if they are small, and we can offer what little we have and trust God to take care of the rest. We can’t do everything, but we can do something.
Some of St. Francis de Sales’s suggestions for practical piety among laypeople include making a morning offering, praying a nightly examen, meditating on the mysteries of God, and forming real, meaningful friendships.1 Try incorporating just one new habit into your prayer life, being intentional about what you choose and how you implement it, and give it some time to make it really stick.
Taking on a spirit of humility and acknowledging our nothingness before God is the best thing we can do to grow. All our spiritual progress must begin from that point. As St. Francis de Sales tells us, “True progress moves quietly and consistently without notice.” If we are grounded in humility, keeping our eyes on God instead of our own circumstances, we can trust that He will bring us to exactly where we need to be.
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1. I highly recommend St. Francis de Sales’s book Introduction to the Devout Life for more insights.
Image: PD-US
1 thought on “Habits and Helplessness”
I remember his writing and Ligouri’s as being very sane and humble…and did I mention sane. You don’t feel that after reading a lot of Augustine who once had unbaptized infants in hell…and lo and behold, Cornelius Jansen of Jansenist fame named his book Augustinus. No one controversial named his book…Ligouri or De Sales.