THE JOYOUS SPIRIT OF BLESSED FRANCIS.
So light-hearted and gay was he, so truly did his happy face express the serenity and peace of his soul that it was almost impossible to remain for any time in his company without catching something of this joyous spirit.
I feel sure that only those of dull and gloomy temperament can take exception to what I am going to relate in order to illustrate our Blessed Father's delightful gift of pleasantry in conversation.
On one occasion when I was paying a visit to him at Annecy two young girls, sisters, and both most virtuous and most devout, were professed in one of the convents, he performing the ceremony, and I, by his desire, giving the exhortation. While preaching, although I said nothing to my mind very heart-stirring, I noticed that a venerable Priest who was present was so much affected as to attract the attention of everyone. After the ceremony, when we were breakfasting with the holy Bishop, the Priest being also at table, I asked Blessed Francis what had been the cause of such emotion. He replied that it was not to be wondered at seeing that this good Priest had lost his aureola, and had been reduced from the high rank of a martyr to the lowly one of a Confessor!
He went on to explain that the Priest had been married, but that on the death of his wife, who was a most saintly woman, he had become a Priest, and that all the children of that happy marriage had been so piously brought up that every one of them had devoted himself or herself to the service of the Altar, the young girls just professed being of the number.
The tears shed by the Priest were therefore of joy, not of sorrow, for he saw his most ardent desire fulfilled, and that his daughters were now the Brides of the Lamb. "But," I cried, "what did you mean by saying that a man married to such a wife as that was a Martyr? That may be the case when a man has a bad wife, but it cannot be true in his case."
Our Blessed Father's manner changed at once from gaiety to seriousness. "Take care," he said to me in a low voice, "that the same thing does not happen to you; I will tell you how, by-and-by, in private."
When we were alone afterwards I reminded him of his promise. "Take care," he said again with some severity of aspect, "lest if you yield to the temptation which is now assailing you something worse does not befall you." He was alluding to my desire to give up the burden of my Bishopric and to retire into more private life.
"Your wife," he went on to say, meaning the Church, whose ring when he consecrated me he had put on my finger, "is far more holy, far more able to make you holy than was that good man's faithful wife, whose memory is blessed. It is true that the many spiritual children whom she lays in your arms are a cause of so much anxiety that your whole life is a species of martyrdom, but remember that in this most bitter bitterness you will find peace for your soul, the peace of God which is beyond all thought or imagination. If you quit your place in order to seek repose, possibly God will permit your pretended tranquillity to be disturbed by as many vexations as the good brother Leone's, who, amid all his household cares in the monastery, was often visited by heavenly consolations. Of these he was deprived when, by permission extorted from his Superior, he had retired into his cell in order, as he said, to give himself up more absolutely to contemplation. Know (Oh! how deeply these words are engraven on my memory) that God hates the peace of those whom He had destined for war.
"He is the God of armies and of battles, as well as of peace, and he compares the Sulamite, the peaceful soul, to an army drawn up in battle array and in that formation terrible to its enemies." I may add that our Blessed Father's predictions were perfectly verified, and after his death when the very things he had spoken of happened to me I remembered his words with tears.