I'm continuing to work through the "troubleshooting guide" that is Part 4 of Introduction to the Devout Life. An index of all posts on St. Francis de Sales' work Introduction to the Devout Life is here. A post outlining part 4 of the book is here.
Having given advice in dealing with temptations to sins great and small, Francis turns in 4-10, "How to Strengthen Your Heart," to weaknesses. Sin and weakness are distinct problems, and so Francis means to give distinct advice about them.
Perhaps five hundred years ago people made more careful distinctions among the categories of sin, temptations to sin, and weakness. They are not the same. A sin is a specific act; a temptation to sin is an internal or external urge toward a specific act; weakness is, I would venture, a tendency to be assuaged by and easily overcome by temptations of a particular sort. The more I read this book, the more I come to believe that our attempts to reform ourselves are seriously muddied by treating weakness as sin and sin as weakness.
For example, lots of people write about their weaknesses (vanity, laziness, impatience, selfishness, gluttonous tendencies) with a distinct tone of guilt. But guilt or compunction is entirely inappropriate towards weaknesses. It's appropriate towards sin, towards sins — towards instances when our weaknesses made it easier for us to be overcome by temptation, and so we committed sins against charity or whatever.
It's a weakness to be impatient; it's a sin to haul off and scream at our kids for inconveniencing us, or to curse another driver on the highway. We should feel guilty about — and repent and confess — the screaming and the cursing, not the impatience. But too often we feel generally "bad" about the impatience, and then we use it to excuse ourselves from the actual sins. "I have anger issues." How convenient. It's a lot easier to confess "I have been impatient with my kids" than "I smacked my child for no good reason, six times since my last confession."
The remedy for sin is, as always, repentance and confession. St. Francis offered a few strategies against temptations, including distracting yourself from them, specific forms of prayer, and an act of the contrary virtue followed by acts of the love of God. So what does he have to say about weakness?
It's a two-pronged approach. Here's the first prong.
From time to time consider what are your greatest weaknesses then adopt a life completely contrary in thought, word and deed.
Before I get into the examples, I want you to notice a couple things about this advice.
First of all: "From time to time." Francis seems to mean that when we are beginners, we can sustain these efforts only in short bursts. Maybe as we strengthen ourselves, we can work on it more frequently and at greater length.
Second: "consider what are your greatest weaknesses." We've all got a number of weaknesses, some minor, some significant. Pick one or a few. Don't try to fix everything about yourself at once.
Those two seem to get us off easy. But the third doesn't: "completely contrary in thought, word, and deed." Even though we may perform this exercise towards only one of our numerous weaknesses, even though we may perform it only occasionally or part-time, when we do it we should be thorough. I wonder if he means us to make a fresh resolution "from time to time" to throw all our efforts at living that "completely contrary" life, knowing that as time passes and our zeal wanes we will gradually return to our old ways; later we can make the same resolution again. Maybe if we do this regularly "from time to time" the effects will last longer each time and we will emerge stronger — each time less plagued by that particular weakness.
On to Francis's examples. I have added annotation and paragraph breaks to improve blogginess.
For example:
If you are inclined to be vain:
- THOUGHT: Consider the worthlessness of worldly things, the effect they will have on your conscience when you come to die, how unworthy they are of a generous heart, being no more than the playthings of a child, and so on.
- WORD: Deprecate vanity whenever you can, no matter what you feel, then honour will bind you to its opposite. We come to hate what we disparage though we were at first attached to it.
- DEED: Do humble, lowly tasks as often as possible, even though with apparent reluctance, for this will so weaken your vanity that when temptations come you will have less inclination to consent and more courage to resist.
If you find that you are inclined to be avaricious:
- THOUGHT: Consider the folly of this vice which makes us slaves of what was made to serve us; consider that you will have to leave all your possessions to someone else when you die; that he may squander them or use them to his ruin, and so on.
- WORD: Deprecate this vice, praise contempt of the world.
- DEED: Go out of your way to give alms and perform acts of charity and let occasional opportunities of gain slip by.
If you are inclined to flirtation:
- THOUGHT: Often consider how dangerous this is, both to yourself and to others; how unworthy to profane the soul's most noble affection for the sake of mere amusement; and that it is the mark of a frivolous spirit.
- WORD: Often praise purity and simplicity of heart…
- DEED: …Conform… your actions to your words as far as possible by avoiding affectation and everything that even savours of flirtation.
There you go, three examples. I am sure you can easily imagine how you could follow this formula to fight all sorts of weaknesses: impatience, gluttonous tendencies, short-temperedness.
One thing I noticed in this bit of advice: Francis is basically telling us to go ahead and be what the world calls "hypocrites." We should deprecate emphatically the very weaknesses we are most subject to, and praise emphatically the very virtues we lack the most. This is a practice that is widely ridiculed. In my experience those who mock "look at so-and-so, he doesn't practice what he preaches" disdain not the preacher's practice, but the preaching.
But Francis isn't interested in your effect on other people here. He's interested in helping you strengthen yourself. And his remedy is to talk the talk first — the easy part — and then (he says) walking the walk will follow. "Honour will bind you" to behave in accord with your speech. "We come to hate what we disparage." "Conform your actions to your words as far as possible."
Fake it till you make it. That's the first prong of Francis's two-pronged approach to your greatest weakness.
The second prong is much simpler and is to be practiced whenever you are feeling especially free and strong — when you are in "a place of power" so to speak.
In time of peace, in other words when you are free from temptations, make acts of the contrary virtue, seeking out occasions if they do not present themselves, and in this way you will strengthen your heart for the future.
Francis doesn't give examples here, but I can supply an example from my own life, if that's not too presumptuous. When I was strengthening myself against gluttony a couple of years ago, I found myself feeling particularly powerful at one point: I wasn't being tempted as strongly to eat far more food than I needed at one sitting. I thought I'd better make the best of this "place of power" and so I started deliberately going to places that had been hard for me in the past, and practicing eating moderately there. I made "acts of temperance," you might say. It seems really silly to identify taking the kids to a buffet restaurant for lunch as an act of virtue, and I wasn't thinking of it that way at the time, but looking back I think maybe it qualified. At the very least, if it doesn't serve as an example, it can perhaps serve as an analogy.
So: Identify your greatest weakness (and its contrary virtue); from time to time adopt a way of life completely contrary to the weaknesss in thought, word, and deed; and when you feel strong and free to do so, make acts of the contrary virtue.
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