OUR SAINT'S HOPEFULNESS IN REGARD TO THE CONVERSION OF SINNERS.
Our Blessed Father was always full of tenderness, compassion, and gentleness towards sinners, but he regarded and treated them in different ways according to their various dispositions.
A sinner who had grown old in evil, who clung obstinately to his wicked ways, who laughed to scorn all remonstrances, and gloried in his shame, formed a spectacle so heart-breaking and so appalling to the holy Bishop, that he shrank from contemplating it. When he had succeeded in turning his thoughts to some other subject, on their being suddenly recalled to it, he would shudder as if a secret wound had been touched, and utter some devout and fervent ejaculation such as this: "Ah! Lord, command that this blind man see! Speak the word only, and he shall be healed! Oh, my God, those who forsake Thee shall be forsaken; convert him, and he shall be converted!"
With obstinate sinners of this class his patience was unwearied. For such, he said, God Himself waited patiently, even until the eleventh hour; adding that impatience was more likely to embitter them and retard their conversion than remonstrance to edify them.
For the sinner who was more open to conviction, and was not so obstinate in his malice, for him who had, that is to say, lucid intervals in his madness, Blessed Francis had the most tender affection, regarding him as a poor paralytic waiting on the edge of the pool of healing for some helping hand to plunge him into it. To such he behaved as did the good shepherd of the Gospel, Who left the ninety-nine sheep in the desert to seek after the hundredth which had gone astray.
But towards the sinner when once converted, how describe his attitude of mind! He regarded him not as a brand snatched from the burning, not as a bruised reed, not as an extinguished taper that was still smoking, but as a sacred vessel filled with the oil of grace, as one of those trees which the ancients looked upon as holy because they had been struck by fire from Heaven. It was marvellous to observe the honour which he paid to such a one, the esteem in which he held him, the praises which he bestowed upon him.
He always considered that souls delivered by God from the mouth of the roaring lion were in consequence likely to be more vigilant, more courageous in resisting temptation, and more careful in guarding against relapses.
He did all he could to cover the faults of others, his goodness of heart being so great that he never allowed himself to think ill even of the wicked. He attributed their sinfulness to the violence of temptation and the infirmity of human nature. When faults were public and so manifest that they could not be excused, he would say: "Who knows but that the unhappy soul will be converted? The greatest sinners often become the greatest penitents, as we see in the case of David. And who are we that we should judge our brother? Were it not for the grace of God we should perhaps do worse than he."
He never allowed the conversion of a sinner to be despaired of, hoping on till death. "This life," he said, "is our pilgrim way, in which those who now stand may fall, and those who have fallen may, by grace, be set on their feet again." Nor even after death would he tolerate an unfavourable judgment being passed on any.
His reason for this was that as the original grace of justification was not given by way of merit, so neither could the grace of final perseverance be merited.
With regard to this subject he related to me an amusing incident which occurred whilst he was a missioner in the Chablais. Amongst the Priests and Religious who were sent to help him was one of a humorous temperament, and who did not hesitate to show that he was so, even in the pulpit. One day, when preaching before our Blessed Prelate against the heresiarch[1] who had raised the standard of revolt in Geneva, he said that we should never condemn any one as lost after death, except such as are by Scripture denounced; no, not even the said heresiarch who had caused so much evil by his errors. "For," he went on to say, "who knows but that God may have touched his heart at the last moment and converted him? It is true that out of the Church and without the true faith there is no salvation; but who can say that he did not at the moment of death wish to be reunited with the Catholic Church, from which he had separated himself, and acknowledge in his heart the truth of the belief he had combated, and that thus he did not die sincerely repentant?"
After having surprised the congregation by these remarks, he most unexpectedly concluded by saying: "We must certainly entertain sentiments of boundless confidence in the goodness of God, Who is infinite in mercy to those who invoke Him. Jesus Christ even offered His peace, His love, and His salvation to the traitor Judas, who betrayed Him by a kiss. Why, then, may He not have offered the same favour to this unhappy heresiarch? Is the arm of God shortened?
"Yet, my brethren," he continued, "believe me, and I assure you I lie not, if this man is not damned he has had the narrowest escape man ever had; and if he has been saved from eternal wreck, he owes to God the handsomest votive candle that a person of his condition ever offered!"
As you may imagine, this finale did not draw many tears from the audience!
[Footnote 1: Calvin.]