The Seed of All Eternity ... Lies Right Here

This chat comes from a letter that St. Francis de Sales wrote to the Duke of Bellegarde (a dear friend of his). The letter was written January 6, 1616. Seven years later, on December 27, 1622, he had his last encounter with the duke, stopping to talk to him at length after Mass outside the church. It was a bitterly cold day. That same afternoon St. Francis was struck down with his last illness and he died the next day (December 28), in the gardener's cottage attached to the convent of the Visitation a little way outside the town.

As he did with the Duke, St. Francis always exhibited great fatherly care to whomever he encountered, as evidenced especially in his many letters.

Our first chat of the year was modestly attended, but the conversation was as engaging as ever. Inspired by the fatherly care of St. Francis, explore what supernatural fatherhood is. Consider the fleeting reality of this world and whether it is just some superfluous burden or a gift to be embraced.

Ultimately, we’ll remember that all our life’s moments contain a kernel of eternity, which we must help grow by participating in God’s love.

If you like the chat below, check out the Living Jesus Chat Room of the Visitation Sisters. Join us at 7:30 p.m. ET each Sunday! We read a passage of St. Francis de Sales and gather great insights and sharing!

A Fatherly Care

We see that he [the duke] and St. Francis were very close. How can information like this help us read the advice of St. Francis with greater insight?

Sherry: Not sure if I understand this question correctly. Also, I find St. Francis de Sales writes so fatherly to everyone – it is his “signature attitude.”

Visitation Sister: I think any written advice from a close friend or director is a treasure particularly after they pass. I held on to a letter my first director sent me – the only one he ever wrote to me.

Sherry: Awww. That sounds precious. Although my Father is still alive, I have a little handwritten note from him on my fridge. The last one he left when he was visiting me the last time here in Canada. He won’t be able to come anymore here.

Visitation Sister: But it is true that St Francis was affectionate to many in his letters and in ways expressed that we might not do so today.

Sherry: Specially for a man. But I find that one can FEEL the Spirit of God in his words. They never sound superficial to me.

Visitation Sister: You are right, there probably was not a superficial bone in his body.

Scripture in Context

Question 2: Connected to that, how can we better understand how the genre and historical context help us better understand Holy Scripture?

Sherry: My husband was my biggest Bible teacher. And he connected almost every sermon / homily to the Jewish roots of the New Testament. It really came alive for me and helped me not to interpret the New Covenant with the eyes of a 21st century woman.

Visitation Sister: What a grace you have in him. Not sure how to go with this question as Scripture was not a direct element in the letter although it influenced so much of St Francis de Sales.

Sherry: You are right. Let’s go to the next question.

Rebecca: Baltimore Catechism No 2: Why did God make you? God made me to show forth his goodness and to share with me his everlasting happiness in heaven.

We had to memorize it as kids. Didn’t matter if you understood or not. But that phrase kept me hopeful at times when there was seemingly nothing left on earth to offer hope.

Sherry: Oh, Rebecca. I know you had such hard times. Thanks for sharing your ray of hope.

Kinship by Covenant

Question 3: St. Francis describes the father-son relationship they have developed as something supernatural. Why is a biological father-son relationship not inherently supernatural, and how can it become so?

Visitation Sister: From my way of thinking, all is based on the supernatural, especially marriage and family.

Sherry: Well, a biological father-son relationship is built on shared DNA basically, but when we share the DNA OF THE HOLY SPIRIT – then we have a supernatural relationship.

Visitation Sister: But there is something special in unrelated souls who feel drawn to each other.

Sherry: Oh my, I so echo this.

Visitation Sister: I think God puts souls together.

Sherry: Yes, Sr. Susan, I also think that God puts souls together. Some of my directees truly feel like daughters to me. Some like sisters now. I love my daughter, but it is very different than my spiritual “daughters.”

Visitation Sister: Can you elaborate on the difference, Sherry, since I never had a biological daughter?

Sherry: Oh. As for my daughter, there is something in me, that LOVES her. It is linked though with a sense of responsibility too; it is something I cannot really step out – I love this child. Although I do not always like her, but still, even in these moments I would throw myself in front of a truck to save her life.

The love I have for my spiritual daughters is – more a deep, deep bubbling joy – a praise in me – it is as love explodes in me when I talk with them. I also often find supernatural insights for them, as it is easy to enter their hearts – and supernatural love is just poured out into me for them, and I can pour it into them.

Not sure if that all makes sense.

Visitation Sister: Yes, I think so. It is a different level, and faith binds the spiritual daughters in a different way.

A Necessary Evil?

Question 4: St. Francis tells the Duke to keep his “eyes steadfastly fixed on that blissful day of eternity.” Does this mean we are supposed to think of this time on the journey toward eternity as insignificant and a “necessary evil”?

Rebecca: To the question. I’d say no. Not a necessary “evil,” but indeed what the whole thrust of living on earth is all about.

Sherry: I must confess, that before I got into the readings of St. Francis de Sales, I was a bit tempted to think like this. Just waiting for heaven. Why hang around here on earth? But once I started to see that everything here on Earth is linked with our Eternity in Heaven, life actually became so meaningful. It is like eternity is scooped up with all our actions and thoughts here.

Rebecca: I like that: “eternity is scooped up with all our actions and thoughts here.”

Sherry: Putting an “eternal spin” on our daily life makes a big difference, I find. In motivation, etc.

Visitation Sister: We live towards an incredible goal and destiny, and we make our way there daily.

Sherry: Well put, Sister Susan. Does anyone else allow themselves to daydream a little bit of heaven once in a while?

Visitation Sister: I long to be with Jesus, but I don’t have mental images of heaven.

Rebecca: It even gave me the assurance that my life would be meaningful whether or not I ever recovered — from a bad concussion that made me look really crazy. I was in medical school in Munich.

Sherry: I also don’t have mental images – but an imprint on my heart. Which I sometimes visit.

Rebecca: Daydream? Every Mass offers a foretaste of heaven.

Sherry: You are so right, Rebecca. Every single Mass. As for your surrendering with your concussion. I remember one of my big depressive episodes in Fall 2003 – there was the debate if I should admit myself to the hospital – and I thought – LORD, if I glorify you more in the psych ward, let it be done. I remember it so vividly because this was NOT a Protestant way to pray. But peace came after this – and I actually was never hospitalized for depression then.

Rebecca: Some people don’t appreciate that, think that if it is so, they are not sure they’d want to go to heaven. They’re bored at Mass. But Our God knows of what we are made. He made us. And he knows what it would take to make us happy.

Sherry: Oh my goodness. How can one think that Heaven could be boring? If it is boring – it is not Heaven.

Visitation Sister: Love is never boring.

Sherry: Even the smallest movements of the Holy Spirit in me make me burst of Joy – and this is in my sinful body and nature here– can you imagine how it will be when we are fully HIS in His presence. WOW.

Rebecca: It can be painful, but never boring. I’ve been tired, and exhausted, even confused, but not bored a day in my life.

Sherry: That’s because you have a brilliant mind, Rebecca, and you are connected to the Spirit.

Rebecca: Mind? What is left of it! But that is enough. “My grace is enough for you.”

Sherry: Let HIS grace be enough for you Rebecca. But I can tell that your mind is still very sharp.

Rebecca: Thank you, Sherry.

The Seeds of Faith

Question 5: What does it mean that “in these passing moments there lies enclosed as in a tiny kernel the seed of all eternity”?

Sherry: Oh, that is a beautiful way to say, what I meant in a way with “scooping up.” Whatever we do here has the seed of eternity in it because it bridges to outside of time and space through our soul one day, and what we do shapes our soul.

Visitation Sister: “Shapes our soul” – beautiful phrase.

Rebecca: I like that phrase, too. I think there is a poet in Sherry, or she is a poet.

Sherry: Thank you, ladies; I am not a poet. And I know that for sure because my daughter is one, and it blows my mind how she can express things with words and poems. But love expresses in a lot of ways. And whenever the Holy Spirit works through us, it can show up as art. That I am convinced of.

Visitation Sister: Seed of eternity and seed of poetry, you perhaps were that seed for her.

Rebecca: Good observation, sister. Is English or German your daughter’s first language?

Sherry: Interesting connection, Sr. Susan. Never saw it like this.

Sherry: As for my daughter: her first language is English, and all her art is in English, but she is quite fluent in German.

Charity First

Question 6: St. Francis died the next day, at age 55, after apparently catching a severe cold while talking to the duke in bitterly cold weather. How could a saint with the stature of St. Francis make a mistake like this?

Sherry: I am 55 right now, just saying. I am not sure if his death was really linked to the cold. Didn't St. Francis die of an aneurysm? Now we would need our doctor Rebecca. Did she leave the chat?

Visitation Sister: She’s not here, but you are right, it was a stroke or something similar.

Sherry: How do you see this, Sister Susan? I am sure you have discussed that in your monastery before.

Visitation Sister: Maybe the cold brought it on. Anyway, charity first in his life.

Visitation Sister: Rebecca is here.

Sherry: Good point.

Sherry: Yes, Rebecca is back. Actually, really good point. Charity first.

Rebecca: I turned on the heater and it blew the circuit breaker cord to which the computer was plugged in. OK now.

Sherry: Oh my, Rebecca, hope all is OK.  What bothers me much more about the death of St. Francis is that at the last visit with St. Jane, she could not tell him all the things she wanted to tell him, and that she did not have a goodbye with him. That makes me always sad when I think about it. I think I read in the biography from Elisabeth Stopp about St. Jane that when she died, a priest who was praying at the same time saw in "the Spirit" two fire balls in the sky, a smaller one shooting up and a big one joining it. He interpreted it as the re-union of the soul of St. Francis and St. Jane.

What do you think about this Sister?

Rebecca: I've been reading a lot by and about St. Francis, but you, Sherry, are more familiar with all this than I am. Interesting. Nice.

Visitation Sister: Yes, that is a true story, Sherry, from St Vincent.

Visitation Sister: Have to go now. Blessed week!

Sherry: Blessed Week, Sister Susan!

Rebecca: Blessed week, Sr. Susan. We love you! Get well. Stay well.

Death often comes unexpectedly, suddenly. And there are "loose ends."

Sherry: Yes, Rebecca, you are right. I often pray that I will be allowed to be with my dad when he steps into eternal life.

Sherry: God granted me to be with my mother, although I lived already in Canada.

Rebecca: I could not be with any of my relatives at the moment of their deaths. But there was a "soul sister" you might say, who lived in Gauting, just south of Munich. Or maybe she was like a mother to me. One day when I was almost delirious with a fever, rocky mountain spotted fever it turned out to be, although I was alone in my apartment in Queens NY, Lizel came, and without a word, just sat down at the end of my bed, and I found this comforting. I was convinced that it was real, although there really wasn't any evidence of any physical presence. When I was a child, I was often sick, and I so wanted my mother to come and just be in my room with me for a while. Even when it was not something contagious -- like for instance a collapsed lung -- she refused. But I KNEW that Lizel was there. We had been to charismatic prayer meetings together. And one time when I was in medical school and had been admitted to the hospital, supposedly for endocarditis, they let me go "home" -- not to my own place -- but she had agreed to take care of me at her house.

I was really too sick even to get up and make a phone call that day with RMSF and suspected it. It has about a 10% mortality rate. I recovered. Long story. I wrote to my friend in Germany. Her husband wrote back that SHE had died that day, and he was glad she had come to visit me.

Sherry: Wow! Rebecca, I am so sorry, but I have to go now. I send you a computer hug. Hope to see you next week again here.

Rebecca: Hello, visitor. Sometimes I just "listen in." I hope you will join us more actively one of these Sunday nights. May God bless and protect you in 2022 and always. Good night for now.

If you liked the chat above, check out the Living Jesus Chat Room of the Visitation Sisters. Join us at 7:30 p.m. ET each Sunday! We read a passage of St. Francis de Sales and gather great insights and sharing!