I am a poor, frightened little creature, the baby of the family, timid and shy by nature and completely lacking in self-confidence; and that is why I should like people to let me live unnoticed and all on my own according to my inclination, because I have to make such enormous efforts about shyness and my excessive fears. Who can fail to see that this is not living according to the spirit?
No indeed,... for when I was still very young and had little understanding I already lived like this; but although according to my temperament I am shy, nervous and as timid as a mole, I want to have a good try to overcome these natural passions and little by little learn to do everything that belongs to the office which obedience, proceeding from God, has laid upon me. Who can fail to see that this is living according to the spirit?
Living according to the spirit means doing the actions which the spirit of God asks of us, saying the words and thinking the things that he wants. And when I say thinking the things he wants, I am referring to your willed thoughts. I am miserable and so I don't feel like talking: draymen and parrots do as much; I feel miserable, but since charity demands that I should talk I will do it: that is what spiritual people say.
I have been slighted and I get cross: peacocks and monkeys do as much; I have been slighted and I rejoice: that is what the Apostles did. So to live according to the spirit is to do what faith, hope and charity teach us to do, whether in things temporal or things spiritual.
So live wholly according to the spirit,... live sweetly and in peace. Be quite confident that God will help you, and in all that happens rest in the arms of his mercy and fatherly goodness.
~ Saint Francis De Sales (+ 1622)
[taken from Magnificat for Tuesday, Jan. 24th, 2012]
