AFFAIRS OF THE HEART

Learning to pray heart to heart

“I love you.” If you were the one to utter these three words, surely you would hold your

breath as you wait for the response. You would wait expectantly, hoping that the other person

would reply with I love you too. In many ways, this is the starting point for understanding

prayer from a Salesian perspective. God is always the one who is addressing our heart with

love and, in a way, is holding his breath as he awaits our response: “Behold, I stand at the

door (of your heart) and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come

in.”i If we accept this heart invitation and respond to this personal address with “I love you

too”, then, heart speaks to heart. Prayer is born. The starting point for the person who prays,

therefore, is always a response to the God who loves us first, we always begin from “I love

you too.”

As the relationship between the heart of God and the human heart deepens, the need

for words decreases. This mutual delight in each other’s company intensifies so that we begin

to draw God’s heart into our own.ii Like a magnet, we are drawn by God our “tire-coeur”.iii

Just as a piece of metal becomes magnetised by the magnet that draws it, so too, we are

aimantisé by God. If we allow ourselves to be ‘touched’ by God, we will become divinised

by sharing in God’s qualities. We can see this even in the young Francis de Sales who, as a

student in Padua, develops the contemplative practice of resting near the divine heart. He

writes: “As the Body needs sleep to refresh and soothe its tired limbs, so does the soul need

time to sleep and rest in the arms of its heavenly spouse to restore the strength and vigour of

its spiritual powers that become exhausted and tired. Therefore, I will allot a certain time

each day for this sacred sleep so that my soul, in imitation of the beloved disciple [John

13:23-24], will repose with complete confidence on the lovable breast, actually in the loving

heart, of the Loving Saviour.”iv

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It is through this ‘reposing’ in the heart of Jesus that we learn to “listen to the

heartbeat of God”v and discover that Christ is already praying within us. Our call is to tune

into this ceaseless prayer of Christ already flowing within us due to the Spirit of Love who

has been poured into our hearts. Before we can adopt this practice of ‘reposing’ in the heart

of Jesus, then, it is incumbent on us to understand first what we mean by the human heart.

The Human Heart

St Francis defines the person in terms of ‘heart’ which underscores our relational nature with

others and the Other.vi The desires of the human heart revolve around love and even the

experience of dissatisfaction reveals the infinite desires of the human heart for love. We are

created with a capacity to love the infinite and this is why, as St Augustine noted, nothing

else other than God will satisfy the deepest hungers of the human heart. Accordingly, the

heart is at rest when it rejoices in the good, but is restless when the good is absent precisely,

because as St Francis de Sales re-iterates, it desires the good.vii If we had all that was good for

us, we would be without desire and without movement, but not being in possession of all our

good, we search for it: “Our heart is anxious”; Francis de Sales starts from this anxiety.viii In

sum, “God having created the human person in his image desires that like in Him everything

in us be ordained by love and for love.”ix This Salesian archaeological and teleological

understanding of the human person, as a being originating from and destined towards love,

has strong affinities with the spirituality of St Catherine of Genoa. For her, “the goal of the

spiritual journey is defined by its beginning. We have been formed by love, in love and for

love. The truest ‘port’ of the human heart is the Pure Love in which it was first created.” x

God who made our “heart even before it was made in the world seeing it only in his divine

plan”xi that it “would be forever united to His, for whom it was created.”xii

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The human heart is good because it is created by God who is good. This explains the

Salesian insistence that at the core, or heart, of every person is goodness. Although we have

been wounded by sin, human nature has not been corrupted. It retains its essential orientation

to love and this natural inclination to love God becomes an effective ‘crook by which God

can gently hold us and draw us to himself.’xiii This is possible because God’s love is breathed

into us at creation. In his earliest book, Meditations on the Church, St Francis writes that

Adam only becomes human whenever God inspires him (that is, breathes his life into him).

This ‘mass of earth’ becomes human only after receiving the breath of love. As Pocetto

reminds us, “thus love enters into the very make-up of the human person, into the innermost

structure of our being ... For this reason, human life is to be considered essentially as a life of

freedom in love.”xiv In us all things must be set in order by love and for love: “Just as weight

gives movement to the moveable parts of a clock, so love gives to the soul whatever

movement it has.”xv This, then, is our universal calling to holiness, everyone is called to love.

It is in and through our love of God and neighbour that we give glory to the God who is

creating us now.

At a very natural level, that is, at the level of nature, we have been created in such a

way so as to be able to receive God’s communication because the human heart is not only

oriented to the good, but created to love the infinite good. St Francis remarks that “God has

planted in the human heart not only a special, natural inclination to love the good in general,

but to love in particular and above all things his divine goodness.”xvi As André Ravier points

out, “the heart of God has made the human heart.”xvii So, we can say with the psalmist, “He

made us, we belong to Him.”xviii If we were to attempt to translate what St Francis is saying

into more contemporary language we could say that we are ‘hard-wired’ for God. Our

‘natural inclination’ to God is borne out of our natural desire for God and this means that we

have an intrinsic God-ward orientation or an orientation to God. We have a fundamental

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basic attraction for God. Our attraction towards other human beings rests on this principle

that we are drawn towards what we perceive to be good, beautiful and true. People are

signposts on the journey since their beauty, truth and goodness points us to the supreme

Beauty, Truth and Goodness that is God.

The Wounded Heart

In every great love story there is an element of tragedy. This is also true of the love story

between God and humanity. God is our God and our heart is His home. Although the human

heart is created by God with a potential to love God and others, the journey towards true love

is often short-circuited. This is because instead of transcending ourselves and becoming a gift

in love, we seek self-gratification and our love becomes self-centered through sin, disordered

desires, and self-love. It follows that the human heart is ‘arrhythmic’ that is, it beats out of

rhythm with the heart of God. When we are no longer in relation to the true and living God,

we will quite quickly seek compensations and the false gods of addiction become more

attractive. It is a small step to become absorbed with the things God has created rather than

recognizing them as gifts from God. As St Francis teaches, however, we become homeless in

this absorption, no longer living from our heart when something other than God possesses our

heart. We are ripe for addiction. Such addiction reveals to us that our restless heart longs for

the infinite God, but we get seduced by a ‘downward transcendence’ when we substitute the

living God for some thing or some one. Such “desiring love, settling on an object extrinsic to

the self, makes, admittedly, a movement outwards and indeed reaches its object, but this

rootedness in the self draws it ineluctably back, to complete a circle (as amor recurvus) and

finish where it began.” xix Accordingly, as Lavelle remarks, “the proper work of the will is in

the ordering of our love; for the will dictates the consent or the refusal we give to love …the

will regulates the course of love and must be vigilant to keep its flame alive and prevent it

from being diverted to objects which may allure but can never satisfy it. Such objects are

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worthy of being loved only in the light of the Infinite Love which sustains the will itself and

in which, once found, it reaches fulfilment.”xx This emphasis on our free consent to love

brings us to the threshold of the mystical life because it presupposes God’s prevenient grace

already at work within us. In Salesian terminology this is the role of inspirations.xxi

Divine inspirations

St Francis teaches us that as well as refusing to make choices which lead us away from our

deepest self and the path of love, we also need to be vigilant in monitoring the good desires

of our heart, to foster these desires and help to bring them to fruition. In a letter to Jane de

Chantal, St Francis de Sales writes: “I shall never stop praying God to perfect His work in

you, that is, to further your excellent desire and plan to attain the fullness of Christian life, a

desire which you should cherish and nurture tenderly in your heart. Consider this to be a

work of the Holy Spirit and a spark of His divine flame.”xxii What is at play here is the ability

to recognize God’s Spirit at work in our good desires which in Salesian spirituality is simply

called, ‘inspirations’. Often we are more familiar with the role of temptations than its

counterpart, inspirations.xxiii God, as our supreme good, is able to draw us to himself through

the attraction of his inspirations. This is the particular mission of the Holy Spirit who pours

into our hearts the first rays and perceptions of his light and vital heat.xxiv Inspiration, then, is

to the human person what the light and warmth of the Sun is to the earth. In this instance the

inspirations, through which God reveals his will, are presented through the metaphor of light

and heat. They are described ‘psychologically’ in the manner in which they affect our

conscience. It is consequent on our free will whether we choose to resist or respond to this

divine awakening. However, it must be noted that we do not awaken ourselves, it is the

prerogative of these inspirations to bring about our awakening. As St Francis notes:”I cannot

awaken, nor can I move myself unless you move me. But when you have moved, then, O

beloved spouse of my soul, ‘we run,’ we two. You run before me, ever drawing me forward,

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and for my part I will follow in your path by consenting to your call.”xxv Here we come face

to face with the essence of Salesian prayer, the human heart being drawn through these

interior movements of divine inspirations into the very Heart of God. This, in turn, is

allowing ourselves to be led by the Holy Spirit because inspirations are always God’s

initiative. Of course, although the divine goodness draws and attracts us, we are left free to

respond: “In spite of the all-powerful strength of God’s merciful hand, which touches, enfolds

and bends the soul with so many inspirations ... grace has the power not to overpower, but to

entice our heart.”xxvi

The essence of inspiration is the way in which God addresses us intimately and

reveals his will to us personally. As St Francis expresses it, “His vital breath is called

inspiration because by it supreme goodness breathes upon us and, therefore, inspires in us the

desires and intentions of his heart.”xxvii Inspiration allows for mutual friendship between God

and us because Jesus reveals the ‘intentions of his heart’ and speaks to our hearts. As André

Brix comments: “The Salesian method is situated at the level of freedom and personal

inspiration. Inspiration reveals that God would like to act in an absolutely original and

authentic manner in each freedom, so as to change the world and create it. It is not a question

of forming a regiment of obedient robots. Inspiration is to do with my acting in a concrete

situation where no-one else can take my place. We must let the exterior be born from the

interior.”xxviii

Whilst inspirations remain always the initiative of God’s grace, nevertheless, we can

foster an interior disposition that makes us vigilant and ready to respond as the occasion

arises. The cultivation of such an interior disposition allows us to respond to these

inspirations ‘carefully, frequently, and promptly’xxix while ‘leading an ordinary life to all

outward appearances.’xxx This inculcates “the virtue of devotion” which”‘is nothing other

than a general inclination readiness of the soul to do what it knows to be agreeable to God. It

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is that enlargement of heart of which David said ‘ I have run the way of your

Commandments, when You did enlarge my heart.’” St Francis, therefore, “invites us ‘to do

everything by love’ because he knows that love broadens the heart while at the same time

keeping it simple and master of itself.”xxxi Indeed, St Francis argues that if we only “accepted

God’s inspirations to the full extent of their power in how short a time would we make great

progress in holiness.”xxxii

Praying heart to heart

Prayer, for Francis, is ‘heart speaking to heart.’xxxiii It is a movement of love between hearts

in which the devout heart is united to God and transformed. Francis describes the various

degrees of prayer in terms of the heart's response to God's love. He follows closely the

degrees of prayer as outlined by St. Teresa of Avila:

1. Vocal prayer is "an overflowing of the heart in words".xxxiv

2. Mental prayer is a "prayer of the heart" that enables us to ruminate on the various aspects of the divine heart.xxxv

3. Contemplative prayer allows "the heart to drink" liquid nourishment which finds its source in the divine heart.xxxvi

4. Prayer of Quiet in which the devout heart rests on the divine heart as exemplified by John the evangelist resting on the breast of Our Lord at the last Supper.xxxvii

Whilst acknowledging that prayer is above all a gift of God, there are things we can do to

make ourselves more open to receiving God's gift of prayer. Francis compares us

humorously to a clock that "no matter how good it may be, it needs resetting and rewinding

twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening."xxxviii

It is through prayer that we best dispose ourselves for the work of God in our lives.

The dialogue of prayer begins in the Heart of God who communicates to us through his

inspirations. These inspirations, the gift of the Holy Spirit, enlighten our mind and move our

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will to respond to God’s goodness. It follows, then, that prayer is the inverse movement of

the inspirations that God communicates to our heart. Our souls move, and are moved, by

these inspirations so that we can lift our mind and heart to God in prayer. St Francis writes:

“we are in continual communication with him and he never ceases to speak to our hearts by

his inspirations, allurements, and sacred movements … He has openly revealed all his secrets

to us as to his closest friends ... as for ourselves, we have freedom to speak to him in devout

prayer whenever we wish, for we have all our life, movement and being not only with him

but in him and by him.”xxxix

Deeply influenced by Gilbert Génébrard’s commentary on the Song of Songs, which

reveals the unfolding of the love story between God and humanity, prayer is accordingly

understood not as something we do, but as a response to God, who draws us continually. It is

God who takes the initiative. We are invited to respond in love to God who has first loved us

into being. As St Therese of Lisieux expresses it, “prayer is not primarily an activity but a

way of being with God. Prayer has to do with where our heart is at every moment of our life,

the trials as well as the joys.”xl In short, prayer is allowing ourselves to be possessed by the

love of God who wants to enter into a deep mutual friendship with us.

As well as the time we set aside for praying St Francis de Sales advises that we make

short spontaneous prayers throughout the day. In this way, in the midst of our busyness, we

withdraw to God already present in our heart. In The Introduction, he advises us to imitate the

halcyon birds that “make their nests like the closed palm of the hand and leave only a small

opening from the top. They put them on the seashore and yet they remain so strong and

impenetrable that, even when washed by the waves, water never enters them. Thus always

floating, they remain in the midst of the sea, on the sea and masters of the sea. Your heart,

Philothea, is to be like that, open only to heaven, impenetrable to riches and perishable

things.”xli

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We must learn to return to our hearts in the midst of daily occupations, just as “birds

have nests in the trees where they can seek refuge” or “deers hide, seek shelter and find the

coolness of the shade in summer in thickets and bushes. Similarly, Philothea, our hearts must

find and choose some place each day, to be near him. There we must seek refuge at every

opportunity.”xlii In short, St Francis is encouraging us to become more aware of, and practice

living in, the presence of God.

Prayer as friendship with Christ

Following in the tradition of St Teresa of Avila, St Francis sees prayer very much as

friendship with Christ,xliii for God is the ‘friend of the human heart.’xliv To create this

friendship we need not only time for prayer, but also, an awareness that certain lifestyles

either facilitate or hinder prayer. The Salesian tradition of spiritual guidance highly

recommends Scripture as a privileged means through which we encounter the person of

Jesus. This Teresian focus on the person of Jesus, proposed by St Francis, requires “often

turning your eyes on him in meditation [so that] you will learn his ways and form your

actions after the pattern of his.”xlv Devasia writes, “Salesian meditation is a regular,

systematic training of the attention to turn inward and dwell continuously on a single focus,

Jesus. The aim is to become so absorbed with the person of Jesus that after many years of

meditation and contemplation we totally forget ourselves.”xlvi The role of delight or

complacence is essential to this understanding of meditation that we are learning to rejoice in

the mystery that is Christ. St Francis de Sales often speaks of delig ht as the way in which the

mind releases itself to be caught up in the mystery.

Guidelines for meditating heart to heart

Influenced by his own experience of the Spiritual Exercises, St Francis de Sales offers some

suggested structures and formats for the practice of meditation and prayer. These meditations

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are for the most part variants of the Spiritual Exercises, which in an Ignatian-like method

bring the five senses to bear on the foregoing contemplation.xlvii Some of these meditations in

the Devout Life may appear rather antiquated to the modern reader, however, all the abilities

of the person praying are engaged: the intellect, will, imagination and emotions. Through the

use of the imagination the person meditating is engaged affectively and stimulated to respond

accordingly. The good intentions that are engendered through mediation, nonetheless, must

be put into action otherwise they will not bear fruit. This explains why St Francis, like

Ignatius, encourages resolutions at the end of the meditative practice so as to translate prayer

into life. Bearing in mind, that both St Jane Frances de Chantal and Francis de Sales advocate

a ‘methodless method’ because prayer is not arrived at through a technique but requires

‘liberty of spirit’ where the person is led by the Holy Spirit, nevertheless, it is useful to offer

the following guidelines for beginners in prayer.

Six steps as a guide to moving through a time of prayer.

1. Place yourself in the presence of God. Remember that God is near, not far away. He is in

the very depth of your heart, your spirit. ‘Begin all your prayers, whether mental or vocal, in

the presence of God. Keep to this rule without any exception and you will quickly see how

helpful it will be.’xlviii A helpful way of guiding people in placing themselves in God’s

presence is to begin with the mantra: ‘I love you too’. These words immediately conjure up

the sense of already being loved by God and that I am responding to this love. The heart is

already warmed in the truth of God’s love for us. No matter how much anyone loves us, their

love comes to us from outside, they speak to our heart. Yet, only God is able to speak to us

from within our heart. He dwells within us. He speaks to our heart from within. At the same

time, we dwell in God who carries us in his heart and opens up his chamber of love to us.

2. In accord with St Teresa of Avila, St Francis believes that most of our difficulties in

prayer lie with the misconception that God is distant. As we place ourselves in God’s

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presence, he advises us to ask Him to help us pay attention to Him, to open ourselves up to

His Word and his presence. “All our difficulties in prayer are heart problems. Our heart is not

in it, we make excuses. We don’t come to it with longing, desire, enthusiasm, but

begrudgingly… Two people who love each other deeply can hardly have problems thinking

of how to spend their time together. It is enough to be together as often as they can!

Unfortunately, we have not reached this point because our love for God is weak. We fail to

engage our heart.” xlix It is for this reason that St Francis counsels us, in our preparation for

prayer, to place ourselves in the presence of God:

Our Lord is not distant but very near to us.l

God is not only near to us, but he is dwelling within us.li

God is dwelling in our heart. “Just as God created this world to be our paradise, so too, has he created your heart to be his paradise.”lii

We do not contain God, we are dwelling within God.liii

3. St Francis counsels us to meditate on Scripture, above all, because we are not simply

thinking about ideas but encountering God in his Word. He writes: “In Holy Scripture the

word meditation is ordinarily applied to the attention we pay to the things of God in order to

arouse ourselves to love them… When we think upon the things of God, not to learn but

rather to acquire affection for them, the act is called meditating and the exercise is mediation.

Meditation is simply attentive thought voluntarily repeated or entertained in the mind in order

to arouse the will to holy and salutary affections and resolutions.”liv

Choose a passage from Scripture, select a scene from the Gospel, a mystery of the

Faith, or a passage from some spiritual reading. If the subject matter lends itself to it, imagine

yourself in the same place as the action or event that is happening. For example, picture

yourself in the midst of the scene near Jesus or with the disciples. Some people find using

the imagination very helpful in prayer whereas others, even at the very beginning, have

problems with discursive meditation. St Teresa of Avila complained that “God did not give

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her talent for discursive thought” or “profitable use of the imagination.” lv Her way of prayer

was to recollect herself and be attentive to Christ’s presence whom she knew by faith dwelt

within her. Just like “a blind person in a room who know that someone is present but cannot

see them with their eyes.”lvi If our mind begins to wander, we gently bring it back through a

passage from Scripture, a picture, or an act of faith and love in the presence of Jesus within

us. For St Francis we must not become preoccupied with distractions, but begin again, each

time we start again is pleasing to the Lord.

4. Meditation for St Francis is not so much for study or to gain knowledge but to increase our

love for God and enter more fully into discipleship. Again, like St Teresa, prayer is not about

thinking much, but loving much, being present to Christ whom we know loves us.

5. If good affections should rise up – gratitude for God’s mercy, awe at His majesty, sorrow

for sin, desire to be more faithful, for example – yield to them.

6. We see clearly in the Introduction to the Devout Life, how St Francis is anxious to

transform Philothea's simple desire to live the gospel into a firm resolve to do so. This is why

he underlines the necessity of resolutions that arise from the affections experienced in

meditation. For example, resolve to be more faithful in prayer, or more ready to forgive, more

eager to share the faith with others, or more determined to resist sin, in as practical and

concrete a way as you can determine. “Most of all, after you rise from meditation you must

remember the resolutions and decisions you have made and carefully put them into effect on

that very day. This is the great fruit of meditation and without it meditation is often not only

useless but even harmful. Virtues meditated on but not practiced sometimes inflate our minds

and courage and we think that we are really such as we have thought and resolved to be.”lvii

St Francis recommends that we end the time of meditation-prayer firstly with

expressions of gratitude to God for the light and affections he has given us in our time of

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prayer; then, an offering of ourselves to the Lord in union with the offering of Jesus; and

thirdly, a time of intercession for our self and others.

When the well runs dry

The experience of aridity or spiritual dryness in prayer is the inevitable experience of those

who have become accustomed to praying regularly. Often, the lack of feeling in prayer may

be misinterpreted as a sign that we are no longer praying or we may be even tempted to give

up prayer. St Francis writes: “Don’t waste time during prayer trying to understand exactly

what you are doing or how you are praying; for the best prayer is that which keeps us so

occupied with God that we don’t think about ourselves or about what we are doing ... don’t

be like the bride who entertains herself by looking at her engagement ring without even

seeing the husband who gave it to her.”lviii

Yet, it needs to be explained to the person praying that this dryness is a normal

phenomenon in the journey of prayer. It is calling for a deeper reliance on faith that God is

working away in the darkness and the lack of feeling is not to be taken as the gauge of prayer.

It is a movement from the senses to the spirit where the sensory part of the person (sensory

gratification) is starting to dry up and the soul’s riches are being transferred to the spirit.

Rather than being an indication of diminishing prayer, this experience is an indication that

God is becoming more the agent and the person more the receiver. It indicates a greater

purity of prayer because our prayer is no longer dictated by what we get out of it as we seek

“the God of consolations and not the consolations of God.”lix

St Francis’s description of St Jane’s experience of aridity in prayer through his

parable of the deaf musician is a good example.lx He reminds her that she is like a deaf

musician who has been hired to play music for the King. The musician takes delight when

seeing how the king enjoys her music, but when the king is absent she is required to continue

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playing although she cannot hear it herself nor see the king’s reactions. This moves the

person praying deeper along the journey towards Pure Love.

What is required at this point of transition as the person’s praying becomes more

passive, and God’s action works away in the darkness, is the inculcation of interior attitudes

and dispositions of heart that can help us to receive the gift of prayer: namely, faith, trust,

fidelity and perseverance.lxi Commenting on the necessity of perseverance, René Voillaume

observes that the only recommendation that Jesus makes regarding prayer is ‘perseverance’.lxii

Our focus must not be on what we are feeling or not feeling, on our experience during prayer

because if so we have stopped praying and become caught up in ourselves. “If we seek our

own satisfaction, we will abandon prayer as soon as it becomes too difficult, or when we feel

dryness or discontent … we must believe that we shall be heard, but it is only very seldom

that we can have evidence of this.”lxiii Love profits from feelings as well as dryness, from

inspirations as well as aridity, from virtue as well as sin. As St Francis de Sales reminds us,

even when we feel nothing and are in a state of aridity we can still exclaim: “Lord, I am no

more than a dry log, set me afire.” We often complain that God does not hear us or we may

mistakenly believe that we are talking to ourselves! Yet, the truth of the matter is that the

problem lies not with God, but with us. “Too often our hearts are set for transmission only,

and incoming calls are not received.”lxiv

Prayer and Life

For St Francis, prayer and life are one, much like how breathing out follows on breathing in.

We breathe in the love of God through prayer (affective love) and breathe out love in serving

our neighbor (effective love).lxv Genuine prayer quite naturally leads to selfless service,

igniting a love that is true charity. Just like any human relationship, through prayer, we are

transformed and shaped by God whom we are communicating with. “Prayer stretches us

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beyond our limits of loving¸ and, in so doing, transforms us ever more into the likeness of

Jesus, by uniting us with him.”lxvi This explains why prayer is essential on the Salesian

spiritual journey of letting ‘Jesus live’ in us. Through prayer we are transformed in God

through love, assuming the heart of Christ so that we can respond to life situations with the

love and compassion of Christ. In Salesian terminology this ecstatic movement out of

ourselves in love of others is called, the ecstasy of action.

A Communion of Hearts

The call to prayer draws us into the Heart of God in communion with others because God is

the ‘great Uniter.’ lxvii Writing to his anam chara, Jane de Chantal, he declares, “It is true, my

dear daughter, our unity is utterly consecrated to the highest unity and each day I sense more

vividly the truth of our sincere connection which will not let me ever forget you even long,

long after I have forgotten myself in order to better attach myself to the Cross.” lxviii In the

Salesian view of Trinitarian love, it appears that it is the role of “the Spirit of Love, uniter of

hearts” to draw us into communion with God and each other.lxix The vision is almost

Balthasarian in its expression, as through the mediation of the Heart of Christ our hearts are

returned together to the Father: “For my work must be perfected in you and it will be brought

to term only when my Heart beats in yours, only when all hearts, now submissive and docile,

beat for the Father together in my Heart.”lxx

It is in the sacraments, in particular, that we are graced with this encounter with the

heart of Christ who draws us into unity. However, “without a prayer life, the sacraments

would have a limited effect. The sacraments confer grace but their effects are stunted because

they do not find ‘good soil’ in which to take root.”lxxi Like prayer, the sacraments, from a

Salesian perspective, are to be understood in terms of an interaction of hearts. Influenced by

Génébrard, the sacraments are not to be understood merely as external rites devoid of all

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warmth and feeling. On the contrary, as Pocetto points out, St Francis “conceives of them as

the dynamic and affectionate actions of Christ in his Church. He compares them to a loving

embrace that Christ gives to his spouse when interpreting verse 2:6 of the Canticle: his left

arm is under my head and his right embraces me.”lxxii

If we return to our mantra of ‘I love you too,’ we could understand baptism as God

pouring his love into our hearts. Through the gift of the Spirit, God is not only saying ‘I love

you,’ but sharing his very life, his love, his Spirit with us, so that we can participate in his

Son’s life and become his beloved child. So baptism is God saying ‘I love you’, and also our

response, it is our acknowledgment of what God is doing. In short, by receiving the gift of

baptism we are responding to God, saying, ‘I love you too’.

Is it not the same with the Eucharist? In this most blessed Sacrament Christ not only

says ‘I love you’, but shows the depth of this love by giving himself to us as our spiritual

nourishment. He enters into communion with us and invites us to respond with our ‘amen.’

By so doing, are we not also saying “I love you too”? Just as God gives Himself to us, so too,

we give ourselves to God. As St John Paul II reminds us, ‘we can say not only that each of

us receives Christ, but also that Christ receives each of us. He enters into friendship with us:

“You are my friends” (Jn 15:14).lxxiii

Yet again, in the sacrament of Reconciliation, the Lord washes us clean, reconciles us

with his Father, and brings us into the Father’s embrace, saying, “I love you”. Our response

in confession is to accept this forgiving love, saying ‘I love you too.’ It is a recognition of our

dependency on God’s grace to be faithful, always remembering that we are saying this from

the position of being embraced by the Father.

Let us conclude our exploration with the irenic words of St Francis who recapitulates

our understanding of prayer as follows: ‘To sum up, the pleasure we take in anything is a

16

precursor that places in the lover’s heart the qualities of the thing that pleases. Hence holy

complacence transforms us into God, whom we love, and the greater the complacence, the

more perfect the transformation. Thus having great love, the saints are very quickly and

perfectly transformed, since love transports and translates the manners and dispositions of

one heart into another.”lxxiv

The idea of transformation into Christ, therefore, while being uniquely personallxxv is

also radically communitarian. St Francis highlights this communitarian dimension for since

each person is made in the image and likeness of God, “together we represent one same

portrait which is God.”lxxvi Here, we enter into what Lajeunie describes as Salesian ‘cosmic

Christocentrism.’lxxvii The summit of creation, therefore, is the communion of all persons in

love with one another and with God.

The Kiss of God

Prayer, understood as heart to heart, is at the epicentre of this work of transfiguration because

our true life is hidden in the Son who returns our hearts to the Father. It is the fulfilment of

the great priestly prayer of Christ that all may be one.lxxviii This is only made possible because

in Christ the divine and human heart unite. This union of hearts, between God and humanity,

is consistently symbolized throughout the Treatise by the image of a kiss.lxxix It is through this

kiss that God draws us to himself and this union will be fully consummated in heaven. We

can, however, receive pre-sentiments of this ‘nuptial kiss’ in the present world, because God

has invited us to participate in his divine friendship.lxxx The union of our hearts with God in

prayerlxxxi is, thus, expressed through meditation where we seek to ‘warm our hearts with

heavenly love,’ lxxxii and through prayers of aspirations that unite us to God in the midst of our

activities.lxxxiii However, it is through contemplation that we enjoy the presence of God in the

depths of our heart.lxxxiv And yet, ‘the devout heart has no less love when it turns to external

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duties than when it prays.’lxxxv Such a perspective, drawn from the Song of Songs, can only

express the story between God’s heart and the human heart as a ‘love story.’lxxxvi It is the story

of God’s seeking out His lost love, ‘the highest possible romance.’lxxxvii We cannot understand

prayer without understanding love and romance. It is God who is seeking us, and prayer is

our response to being courted by God.

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i Rev.3:20.ii OEA IV:116; 162; 164. There are multiple references, in the Treatise which allude to God as the origin of the inspirations that he sends into our hearts. OEA IV:117; 128; 230; 232; 234; OEA V:89; 91; 100; 103; 344. References are taken from Oeuvres Édition d’Annecy and abbreviated as follows: OEA, followed by the volume (Roman numerals) and page (Arabic numerals). The English language translation is taken from Francis de Sales, Treatise on the Love of God, trans. J.K Ryan (Rockford, IL: Tan book Publishers, 1975).iii “Be a magnet to my heart” OEA V:19; T2:24. This explains why St Francis constantly makes use of terms expressive of “union”, “adhésion”, and “tirer”. See also, OEA VIII:153.iv Francis de Sales, Spiritual Exercises, trans. William Doughtery, OSFS, ed. Joseph F. Chorpenning, OSFS (Toronto: Peregrina Publishing, 1993), 30.v John Philip Newell, The Re-birthing of God: Christianity’s Struggle for New Beginnings (Woodstock, Vermont: Skylight Paths Publishing, 2014), 7.vi It is not easy to define ‘heart’ in Salesian spirituality because St Francis ‘does not always use the term to signify systematically the same reality.’ R. Mercier, ‘Spiritual Direction: Prophetic Insight and Pastoral Guidance Methods of Prayer according to St Francis de Sales’. Indian Journal of Spirituality, 18 (2005), 350.vii OEA IV:44.viii E.M. Lajeunie, Saint Francis de Sales. The Man, the Thinker, His Influence. Vol. 2. Trans. by Rory O'Sullivan (Bangalore: SFS Publications, 1987), 266ix OEA IV:40.x J. Urdis, ‘Possessed by Pure Love: The Spirituality of Catherine of Genoa’. Studies in Spirituality, 6 (1996), 131- 44.xi OEA XVI:300.xii OEA XV:91.xiii OEA IV:84. xiv Alexander Pocetto, ‘An Introduction to Salesian Anthropology’. Salesian Studies, 8 (Summer, 1969), 45-50.xv OEA V:309.xvi OEA IV:77. See also, OEA IV:78; 79; 84; 137.xviiAndré Ravier, Ce Que Croyait François de Sales (Paris: Ateliers Henri Labat,1976), 7. xviii Psalm 100.xix James Mc Evoy, “The other as oneself: friendship and love in the thought of St Thomas Aquinas”, in Thomas Aquinas: Approaches to the Truth, eds. J. Mc Evoy and M. Dunne (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2002), 24.xx Louis Lavelle, Quatre Saints: De La Sainteté (Livry-Gargan: SAGIM, 1993), 195-6.xxi The theme of inspiration is treated in the Introduction, book two, chapter eighteen, OEA III:108-11 and extensively in the Treatise, book two, chapters 9-13, OEA IV:115-133; book four, chapters 5-6, OEA IV:228-36; book eight, chapters 10-13 OEA V:89-104.xxii Letter to Jane Frances de Chantal, 3 May 1604, OEA XII: 263-64.xxiii ‘Inspirations are … all those interior attractions, motions, acts of self-reproach and remorse, lights and conceptions that God works in us and predisposes our hearts by his blessings, fatherly care, and love in order to awaken, stimulate, urge, and attract us to holy virtues, heavenly love, and good resolutions, in short, to everything that sends us on our way to our everlasting welfare.’ OEA III:108.xxiv OEA IV:130. xxv OEA IV:132.xxvi OEA IV:126-27.xxvii OEA V:90. This allusion to inspiration as ‘breathing upon’ is derived from its etymological Latin source: in-spirare means to breath upon, indicating that it doesn’t come from within us but from God.xxviii André Brix, Initiation à la lecture du Traité de L’Amour de Dieu, Texte établi d’après l’enregistrement des conférences données au cours de plusieurs weekends en 1980–1981 à Ellezelles (Belgique), 287.xxix OEA III:15.xxx OEA III:6.xxxi François Corrignan, La Spiritualité de François de Sales: Un Chemin de Vie. (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1989), 143.xxxii OEA IV:121.xxxiii OEA V:30.xxxiv OEA IV:52. A Single Our Father said with feeling has greater value than many said quickly and hurriedly, OEA III:72.

xxxv OEA IV:310.xxxvi OEA IV:324.xxxvii OEA IV:332-3.xxxviii OEA III:340.xxxix OEA IV:164. For further insight into this relationship of prayer as “Heart to heart,” see E. Mc Donnell, God Desires You (Stella Niagara N.Y.:Desales Resource Center, 2008), 45-55.xl Aloysius Rego, Holiness for all: Themes from St Thérèse of Lisieux (Oxford: Teresian Press, 2009), 100.xli OEA III:185.xlii OEA III:192.xliii ‘Prayer in my opinion is nothing else than an intimate sharing between friends; it means taking time frequently to be alone with Him who we know loves us.’  “The Life,” Chap. 8 par. 5, translated by Kieran Kavanaugh, O.C.D. and Otilio Rodriguez, O.D.C., Collected Works of St Teresa of Avila, Vol.1 ((Washington: ICS Publications, 1976), 167.xliv OEA IV:163-164. See IV:295; IV:319; IV:331; V:19; V:196xlv OEA III:70.xlvi Devasia Manalel, Spiritual Direction: A Methodology (Bangalore: SFS Publications, 2005), 157.xlvii See the “Application of the Senses” in the Spiritual Exercises, 121-26.xlviii OEA III:71.xlix Eugene Mc Caffrey OCD, “Pray as you can, not as you Can’t, the best and only advice”, Mount Carmel 59/3 (Sept.2011), 66.l ‘Look at Him’, St Teresa writes, ‘He never takes his eyes off you’, St Teresa of Avila, Way of Perfection 26.3.li ‘Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.’Jn.14:23.lii In the original draft of book six, chapter eight in the Treatise, St Francis describes the human heart as being ‘the dwelling place, the paradise of God.’ OEA V:483. St Teresa offers us a similar perspective: ‘The soul is a paradise where the Lord says he finds his delight!’ Interior Castle I.1.1liii ‘In him we live and move and have our being.’ Acts.17:28. This also indicates clearly that God is not an extension of ourselves, but that we draw our life from God who breathed his Spirit into us at our creation.liv OEA IV: 306-7lv "The Life", Chap. 9, par 6, Collected Works of St Teresa of Avila, Vol.1, 73.lvi St Teresa writes, ‘This is the method of prayer I then used:  since I could not reflect discursively with the intellect, I strove to picture Christ within me.’ “The Life”, Chap. 9, par 4, Collected Works of St Teresa, Vol. 1, 71.lvii OEAIII:83.lviii OEA IV: 336.lix OEA V:142.lx OEA V:137-38.lxi Blessed are those who, with a noble and generous heart, take the word of God to themselves and yield a harvest through their perseverance.’ Lk.8:15; ‘Patience brings perseverance, and perseverance brings hope, and this hope is not deceptive, because the love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given us.’ Rms.5:5.lxii René Voillaume, Brothers of Men (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1966), 94-5.lxiii Jacques Philippe, Time For God (London: St Paul’s, 2005), 21.lxiv Eugene Mc Caffrey, Patterns Of Prayer (N.Y.Mahwah: Paulist Press, 2003), 29.lxv OEA IV:301-02.lxvi Rego, Holiness for all, 100.lxvii Letter to Jane Frances de Chantal, 25 December 1613, OEAXVI:121.lxviii OEA XIII:295.lxix Sa Vie et ses oeuvres, Tome II, Entretiens, 478, cited in, W.M. Wright, Bond of Perfection: Jeanne de Chantal and François de Sales (New York, Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1985), 140-41.lxx Hans Urs Von Balthasar, Heart of the World (San Francisco : Ignatius Press, 1979), 81.lxxi Philippe, Time for God, 27.lxxii Alexander T. Pocetto, ‘Compassionate love and Salesian Spirituality’, at www.franz-von-sales.de/icss_de /artikel/english/ pocetto 01.pdf . accessed 12/12/2016.

lxxiii Ecclesia De Eucharistia, n.22.lxxiv OEA V:61.lxxv In the Treatise, bk.2, chap.7, St Francis indicates that as a personal intimate relationship with God, grace is unique. Each person receives a personal individual grace. Grace has such a unique quality that no two persons are alike.lxxvi OEA X:270.lxxvii Lajeunie, St Francis de Sales, Vol. 2, 159.lxxviii ‘I pray that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.’ Jn.17: 21.lxxix OEA IV:51–52; 188–9; OEA V:293.lxxx OEA V:293.lxxxi OEA V:5; 8; 9; 10.lxxxii OEA IV:307; OEA IV:308; 311; OEA IV:313; OEA IV:314; 327.lxxxiii OEA V:19; 336; 274; OEA IX:70–71; 469; OEA XIV:78; OEA XV:269.lxxxiv OEA IV:327; 329; OEA V:9; 42; 78.lxxxv OEA V:328.lxxxvi Deus Caritas Est, n.10.lxxxvii ‘The Future of Love: A reading of Pope Benedict’s Deus Caritas Est’ in, John Milbank, The Future of Love: Essays in Political Theology (USA: Cascade Books, 2009), 366.