On a Mission (eBook)

Lessons from St. Francis de Sales

Patrick Madrid (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2023 | 1. Auflage
160 Seiten
Servant (Verlag)
978-1-63582-324-0 (ISBN)

In this new book, Patrick Madrid uses the example of St. Francis de Sales to illustrate the zeal, spiritual principles, and attitude of one who sets out to live and share the faith. Christ sent his apostles into the whole world to make disciples of all nations, and by virtue of our baptism, we, too, are called to be apostles on this same mission. But how do we start? How can we accomplish in today's culture? In this book, Patrick shares his own time-tested methodology for teaching Catholics how to prepare themselves to: - Explain their faith more intelligently - Defend it more charitably - Share it more effectively. His methodology, derived from more than twenty-five years working in the field of apologetics, involves both practical techniques and theological truths revealed to us in Scripture and exemplified in the lives of the saints. It includes emulating the apologetics techniques of the original apostles, as well as the Fathers and Doctors of the Church in ensuing centuries. More importantly, it details the sanctifying process of cooperating with God's grace as he lovingly forms an apostolic heart for others within each of us.

In this new book, Patrick Madrid uses the example of St. Francis de Sales to illustrate the zeal, spiritual principles, and attitude of one who sets out to live and share the faith. Christ sent his apostles into the whole world to make disciples of all nations, and by virtue of our baptism, we, too, are called to be apostles on this same mission. But how do we start? How can we accomplish in today's culture? In this book, Patrick shares his own time-tested methodology for teaching Catholics how to prepare themselves to: - Explain their faith more intelligently- Defend it more charitably- Share it more effectively. His methodology, derived from more than twenty-five years working in the field of apologetics, involves both practical techniques and theological truths revealed to us in Scripture and exemplified in the lives of the saints. It includes emulating the apologetics techniques of the original apostles, as well as the Fathers and Doctors of the Church in ensuing centuries. More importantly, it details the sanctifying process of cooperating with God's grace as he lovingly forms an apostolic heart for others within each of us.

Chapter One

WHAT AN APOSTLE LOOKS LIKE

THE WIND IS HOWLING AND the snow begins falling more heavily as nightfall gathers itself around the young priest. Though he has been riding since early afternoon, there are several miles yet to go before he would reach his destination. He keeps to the path as best he can, but the drifting snow makes it difficult for the horse to go much faster than a walk.

The temperature has dropped well below freezing, and after having ridden in the frigid open air for several hours, he is having trouble holding the reins. He grips them as well as he can hoping the thin wool gloves a Catholic couple had given him the previous winter will keep at bay the aching numbness in his hands long enough for him to revive them before the fire later that night. Shivering within his cloak, his teeth chattering, the priest continues reciting his evening prayers and plods on into the night, his head bowed slightly against the wind.

His name is Francis de Sales, a Catholic priest not yet thirty years old, who has volunteered for an arduous pastoral assignment in the Chablais region of southeastern France,4 an area that in recent decades has become mission territory. He is on his way to a modest farmhouse in an outlying town a few miles away, the home of a Catholic family who offers him hospitality whenever he is in the area. He knows he will be greeted with a hot meal and a fire in the hearth where he can warm himself and let his clothes dry out.

From this “safe house,” he has planned to spend the next week ministering to the few Catholics living in that town, preaching, celebrating Mass, hearing confessions, baptizing, and, if the non-Catholics in the area will listen, giving public talks on the Catholic faith. Most of the inhabitants of the region are Calvinists, so he knows he will face challenges and obstacles to his ministry.

This is nothing new to him. Riding alone through this cold night in January of 1596 is like many other such nights for the tired priest. For over a year he has often had to travel by night and in harsh weather to carry out his priestly ministry. Getting soaked and chilled, even chased, has become a way of life for him.

He even smiles at the memory of another winter night he spent in the limbs of a tree, safely out of reach above the snapping jaws and threatening growls of a pack of dogs that had been set on him by a farmer displeased to see a Catholic priest venturing into the area. The dogs eventually wandered away in search of more accessible prey, but, fearful that they might return, Francis used his belt to lash himself to a sturdy branch so he could avoid falling out of the tree once he had fallen asleep. It was one of many such “adventures” he had endured cheerfully and out of love for Christ as he carried out his spiritual search and rescue mission.

A Man on a Mission

Ordained to the priesthood in 1593, Francis de Sales spends the first year of his priestly ministry doing parish work among the Catholic population in Annecy, baptizing, preaching, celebrating Mass, and hearing confessions. This pastoral experience is an important, if short-lived, foundation for his later work among people who would prove very antagonistic toward Catholicism.

Anxious to carry the message of the true Faith into what was then hostile territory, Francis volunteers to evangelize the inhabitants of the Chablais region of France, an area that had been thoroughly Catholic for more than a thousand years but in recent decades has fallen into the heresy of Calvinism. As a result, much of the population is now steeped in antipathy toward the ancient Catholic faith.5

A lesser-known detail of this great disciple’s life is that, as a young man, Francis was greatly affected by the Catholic-Calvinist controversy over predestination. Having studied both sides of the issue carefully, he comes away deeply troubled, so much so that he suffers from insomnia and is often unable to eat because of the heavy temptations he experiences to despair of God’s mercy. This trial comes to an abrupt end, however, when he goes to pray for divine guidance in the parish church of St.-Étienne-des-Grès in Paris. While there, he also kneels before an image of the Blessed Virgin Mary, asking for her intercession and consecrating himself to her. The fruits of this visit are profound: His depression vanishes for good, and Francis is never again troubled by doubts about God’s merciful love for him.6

As he now traverses the snowy Chablais landscape, the figure of this priest on horseback is hardly a welcome sight to the local inhabitants. Some sixty years earlier, the fiercely anti-Catholic Protestant scholar, John Calvin, had taken up residence in Geneva, less than thirty miles from where Francis is riding. With the help of the armed might of the Protestant Duke of Savoy’s troops, Calvin’s iron grip soon closed itself around the Catholic population of the Chablais district, crushing the Catholic Church’s influence there. Calvinist ministers set about converting almost all of the local population to Protestantism. The area thus gradually becomes encased in a hardened, Calvinistic anti-Catholicism.

In recent years, however, under the protection and patronage of Charles Emmanuel, the new Catholic Duke of Savoy, the Catholic Church has been allowed to reestablish itself. But uprooting the now-entrenched hatred of Catholicism is, as one can imagine, an extraordinarily difficult, if not seemingly impossible, task. And yet this is exactly why young Francis de Sales volunteers for it.

His work will involve not only the pastoral care of souls, but also a full-blown effort to reevangelize the populace—and that, he knows, will be a formidable challenge. He is sure to face vociferous opposition from the many Calvinist ministers in the region. They constantly thunder from their pulpits against the “evils” of Catholicism. Although the Catholic Church has been granted legal status in the Chablais region, very few of its inhabitants are in favor of this development. In fact, the vast majority has been conditioned to regard the Church as the “Whore of Babylon,” a counterfeit form of Christianity that preaches a false gospel.

For example, according to Calvin, the pope’s “tyranny” and “sacrilegious impiety” has practically destroyed the churches—churches which

He has profaned [and] by cruel domination has oppressed, by evil and deadly doctrines like poisoned potions has corrupted and almost slain; churches where Christ lies half-buried, the gospel is suppressed, piety is put to flight, and the worship of God almost abolished; where, in short, all things are in such disorder as to present the appearance of Babylon rather than the holy city of God.7

It would be difficult to imagine a less hospitable mission field for a young Catholic priest to evangelize!

Francis’s ministry in the towns and hamlets surrounding Geneva indeed turns out to be especially challenging. Few people gather for, much less listen to, the open-air sermons he often preaches in the town square. His Masses are sparsely attended. It seems that, aside from a few recent converts and those hardy Catholics who have managed to weather the decades-long Calvinist winter and remain true to the Church, no one is willing to listen to his arguments in favor of Catholicism. They have been too thoroughly indoctrinated against it.

Other priests have come and tried to gain a foothold for the Church there. Most depart soon afterward, deflated by their inability to get through to the people. But not this priest. Francis is patient and persistent. He writes:

“You need patience to do God’s will and receive what he has promised,” says the Apostle (Hebrews 10:36). True, for our Savior Himself has declared, “By your patience you will possess your souls” (Luke 21:19). It is our great happiness to possess our own soul, and the more perfect our patience the more completely do we possess our soul. Therefore, it is very necessary that we perfect ourselves in this virtue.8

The young priest feels a deep inner certitude that the mission of evangelization can be accomplished, but it will require resourcefulness as well as tenacity. He knows that in due time, if he remains faithful to his apostolate, God will provide the graces necessary for the true Faith to flourish once again within the hearts of these good people.

With God There Are No “Impossible Dreams”

Francis is sent out in search of not just one lost sheep, but tens of thousands—those who have strayed or been led out of the fold and are grazing in the arid prairies of Calvinist Protestantism. His mission is to lead them back to the green pastures of the fullness of truth. To do this effectively, he has to remain faithful to his personal prayer life, for he knows that without prayer he can accomplish nothing of true or lasting value. The heart of this disciple does not seek the consolations of God but, rather, the God of consolations. As Francis affirms:

We should approach holy prayer...

Erscheint lt. Verlag	19.1.2023
Sprache	englisch
Themenwelt	Geisteswissenschaften ► Religion / Theologie ► Christentum
ISBN-10	1-63582-324-2 / 1635823242
ISBN-13	978-1-63582-324-0 / 9781635823240

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