BLESSED FRANCIS AND THE BISHOP OF BELLEY'S SERMON.
One day I was to preach at the Visitation Convent at Annecy, the first established convent of the Order, and I knew that our Blessed Father, as well as a great congregation, would be present. I had, to tell the truth, taken extra pains in the consideration of my subject, and intended to do my very best. I had chosen for text a passage in the Canticle of Canticles, and this I turned and twisted into every possible form, applying it to the Visitation vocation which I extolled far too extravagantly to please the good Bishop.
When he and I were alone together afterwards, he told me that, though my hearers had been delighted with me, and could not say enough in praise of my sermon, there was one solitary exception, one individual who was not pleased with it. On my expressing surprise and much curiosity to know whom I could have hurt or distressed by my words, he answered quietly that I saw the person now before me. I looked around—there was no one present but himself. "Alas!" I cried, "this is indeed a wet blanket thrown upon my success. I had rather have had your approbation than that of a whole province! However, God be praised! I have fallen into the hands of a surgeon who wounds only to heal.
"What more have you to say, for I know you do not intend to spare me?"
"I love you too much," he replied, "either to spare or to flatter you, and had you loved our Sisters in the same way, you would not have wasted words in puffing them up in place of edifying them, and in praising their vocation, of which they have already quite a sufficiently high opinion.
"You would have dealt out to them more salutary doctrine, in proportion as it would have been more humiliating. Always remember that the whole object of preaching is to root out sin, and to plant justice in its stead."
On my replying to this that those whom I addressed were already delivered from the hands of their enemies, the world, the flesh, and the devil, and were serving God securely in holiness and justice, "Then," he said, "since they are standing, you should teach them to take heed lest they fall, and to work out their salvation with fear and trembling.
"It is right, indeed, for you to encourage them to persevere in their holy undertaking, but you must do so without exposing them to the danger of presumption and vanity. Enough said; I know that for the future you will be careful in this matter."
The next day he sent me to preach in a convent of Poor Clares, an Order renowned for the exemplary life of its members and for their extraordinary austerities. I took good care to avoid the rock on which I had struck the day before, and against which he had warned me. There was as large a congregation as before, but I confined myself to plain and simple language, without a thought of studied rhetoric.
I did not praise the austerities of the good nuns, nor did I labour to please any of my hearers, their edification was my sole object.
On our return to the house, our Blessed Father said, embracing me tenderly, that though most of those present were dissatisfied, and compared my sermon most unfavourably with that of the preceding day, yet, that he, on the contrary, who had then found fault with me, was now perfectly contented and pleased, and that he believed that God was pleased also. "As for your past faults," he continued, "I give you a plenary indulgence for them all.
"If you continue to preach as you have just done, whatever the world may say, you will be doing much service for the Master of the Vineyard, and will become a fitting servant of His Testament."
One day I was preaching before him at Annecy in the church which he used as his cathedral. He was surrounded by all his canons, who, with the whole Chapter, attended him to the bench where he was in the habit of sitting to hear sermons.
This particular one of mine pleased him as regarded its matter and delivery, but I suffered an allusion to escape me referring to his own name of Sales, and implying, or rather affirming, that he was the salt (Sal es) with which the whole mass of the people was seasoned.
This praise was so distasteful to him that, on our return from the church, he took me to task for it, in a tone and with a manner as severe as was possible to his gentle nature. "You were going on so well," he said. "What could have induced you to play these pranks? Do you know that you spoilt your sermon by them? Truly, I am a fine sort of salt, fit only to be thrown into the street and trampled under foot by the people. For certainly you must have said what you did say in order to put me to shame—you have found out the right way to do that—but, at least, spare your own friends."
I tried to excuse myself, alleging that what the Bishop of Saluces once said to him had suddenly come into my heads and that, quite without premeditation, the very same words escaped my lips, "But," he replied, "in the pulpit such things must not escape our lips. I am quite aware that this time they really did escape you, but you must not allow it to happen again."
I may here explain, for your benefit, what I meant by this reference to a saying of the Bishop of Saluces. That holy prelate, who died in the odour of sanctity, and who was a disciple of Sr. Philip Neri, was an intimate friend of our Blessed Father's.
On one occasion, when the latter was passing through Saluces on his way to the shrine of Our Lady of Montdeay, the good Bishop received him with every mark of respect, and begged him to preach in his cathedral. After the sermon, he said to him, "My Lord, truly tu Sal es; at ego, neque sal, neque lux." That is to say, "You are a true salt (Sal es), and I am neither salt nor light," alluding to the word Saluces (Sal lux), his diocese.[1]
[Footnote 1: NOTE.—Another version says that it was St. Francis who answered: "On the contrary, tu sal et lux." See "Vies de S. F. de Sales." by his nephew, Charles Auguste de Sales and Hamon. Also the life of Blessed Juvenal Ancina, the said Bishop of Saluces. [Ed.]