Loving Kindness

The measure of love is to love without measure.

When St John Bosco was ordained priest he made this resolution, “The love and gentleness of St Francis de Sales will guide me in everything.” Logically then, he felt compelled to say that anyone who wanted to share in his work for young people had to have “the spirit of Francis de Sales.” They were to live the Gospel of Jesus as Francis did.

For Francis, God was above all the God of our heart. He was father and mother to all. God nurtures us and draws us gently into a covenant with Jesus, whose most tender love was shown when he died for us on the Cross.

Daily life is the ordinary place to find God. For Francis the “present moment” was like an eighth sacrament, a sacred meeting-place with God. Nothing was more sure than his presence to us. “As sure as the sunrise, so surely will he be there with me as He is today.”

Francis gave spiritual direction to lay people who were living real lives in the real world. He had proven with his own life that people could grow in holiness while involved in a very active occupation. He also recognized that Christian marriage and family life is itself a call to holiness.

His most famous book, Introduction to the Devout Life, was written for ordinary lay people in 1608, not just the clergy and religious. Written originally as letters, it became an instant success all over Europe—though some clergy rejected the notion that lay men and women could achieve holiness in the experience of their daily life. Some tore it up because Francis encouraged dancing and jokes!

For Francis, the love of God was like romantic love. He said, “The thoughts of those moved by natural human love are almost completely fastened on the beloved, their hearts are filled with passion for it, and their mouths full of its praises. When it is gone, they express their feelings in letters, and can't pass by a tree without carving the name of their beloved in its bark. Thus, to those who love God can never stop thinking about Him, longing for Him, aspiring to Him, and speaking about Him. If they could, they would engrave the name of Jesus on the hearts of all humankind.”

“If I have some heavy cross to bear,” wrote Francis, “God will either take it from me or give me the strength to carry it.” There is no need for any fear.

Our life, in all its humanness, is unique and beautiful—it is God’s great gift to us. It’s ours to live with joy and optimism. We really are in God’s hands. We can find the inner strength to face whatever life throws at us. But we must be real about today and not dream idly of tomorrow. Softness and indulgence bring only sadness. There is joy, freedom and peace of heart to be found where love is genuine and without compromise. It’s a journey to God that’s possible for anyone.

Francis believed passionately in the radical goodness to be found in each one of us: a potential for good that’s greater than any tendency to evil. This “humanism” of Francis encourages us to believe in a full blossoming of our lives, both natural and supernatural. He had no time for a “gloom and doom” attitude to life. “Nourish yourself with joy,” he would say. Preachers who taught otherwise were “traitors of humanity.”

Francis, like Jeremiah, had a prophet’s heart that couldn’t say “No” to God. This strong, apostolic zeal coupled with gentle, pastoral love were the perfect model for Don Bosco’s “Salesians” who were to win the hearts of the young. Strength that is gentle; gentleness that is strong. Francis said, “Nothing is so strong as gentleness, nothing so gentle as real strength.” Only kindness can win hearts: kindness that pays the price of unlimited availability, patience and self-denial.

Jesus came to reveal “the loving-kindness of the heart of our God.” Francis and Don Bosco knew that all starts from Him and all leads back to Him. Love is the beginning, love is the end, love is the way.

So when he founded his new congregation, Don Bosco adopted the name “the Society of St Francis de Sales.”