Feast of Pentecost Sunday

(Sermon of Saint Francis de Sales, Bishop and Doctor of the Church)

We celebrate today the Feast of the Divine Presence and the greatest of all gifts, the Gift of the Holy Ghost, Who was sent from the Father and the Son, under the form and figure of tongues of fire, upon the Apostles and upon those assembled with them in the chamber. But in this incomparable Gift are contained seven other Gifts, which we call the Gifts of the Holy Ghost. It was certainly a very great Gift that the Eternal Father made to the world, when He gave His own Son, as our Lord Himself says: “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.” Ah! as the great Apostle Saint Paul says, what would he be willing to exchange for that Gift?

You remember well, I am sure, the beautiful story of the patriarch Joseph, which has been so often related, but which cannot be too much considered. You remember that when he was viceroy of Egypt his brothers who were in Mesopotamia came several times to him to be helped by him in their extreme necessity, when their good father Jacob and they were reduced by the famine in their country. You know that they returned each time to their father laden with corn. But when they brought little Benjamin they did not return as at other times laden merely with corn and such things given solely by measure, but with rich gifts and with chariots of all that could be desired. From this let us see what the Eternal Father does in our day; for although the Ancient Law bestowed many great benefits upon its people, it was always by measure. But on the other hand, in the New Law, when He saw the dear Benjamin, that is, when our Lord entered into His glory, He opened His generous hand most liberally to scatter gifts and graces on His faithful, as He said by the prophet Joel, that He would pour out His Spirit upon all flesh, that is, upon all men and not merely upon the Apostles.

You know also what Isaias said of our Lord, that He received infinite grace and the Gifts of the Spirit rested upon His head. The Spirit of the Lord, said he, would rest upon Him, the spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the spirit of counsel and fortitude, the spirit of knowledge and of piety, and He would be filled with the fear of the Lord. But wherefore did the prophet say that all these Gifts would rest upon our Lord, when He could have had no need of them, seeing that He Himself was the Source of all grace? It was not otherwise than for us, to cause us to understand that all graces and heavenly blessings must be given to us by Him who is our Head, who distributes them to us who are His members, that is, children of the Holy Church of which He is the Head.

And as a proof of this truth hear what He said in the Canticle of Canticles to His well-beloved : “Open to Me, My spouse, My sister.” He called her spouse, because of the greatness of His love, and His sister, as an evidence of the purity and chasteness of that love. “Open to Me,” He said, “open to Me quickly, for My head is filled with dew and My locks with the drops of the night.” Now the dew and the drops of the night are one and the same thing. What do you think that that well-beloved of the soul meant by these words but that He desired ardently that His well-beloved might open to Him promptly the door of her heart, that He might be able to bestow there those sacred Gifts and those graces which He had received so abundantly from His Eternal Father, as a dew and a very precious liquor which He wished to present to her?

See then when He sends His Holy Ghost upon the Apostles, and upon all the others assembled in the chamber with them, what He does for them. And this is the meaning of the words of Saint Luke in saying that they spoke as the Spirit gave them utterance. But you tell me that the Apostles had already received the Holy Ghost, that is, when our Lord breathed upon them after His Resurrection and said to them : “Receive ye the Holy Ghost ; whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them, and whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained”; and He thereby constituted them prelates in His Church and gave them the power of remitting sins and of binding and loosing souls. It is true that they received the Holy Ghost at that time, but it was not with such abundance, nor with such glory and magnificence, as when they received it today, nor did it produce in them such effects as today. From the same Eternal Father there was that great Gift to the world when He gave His only Son; but it was a Gift that was hidden, concealed in our humanity and mortal nature. That was by no means such a Gift as that He gives today to His Church, for that ought to be regarded as the more excellent Gift which had never before been given to men, especially since it was by the Father and the Son that it was sent; and we know well that gifts are regarded great according to the love that prompts them. We can therefore conjecture the excellence of that gift, because it is not only made with great love, but it is Love itself that gives itself and is given. For we all know that the Holy Ghost is the love of the Father and the Son, and that when we say that the Holy Ghost was given us by the Father and the Son, we do not mean that He should be separated from one or the other, for that could not be, since He is true God, indivisible from the Father and the Son. But we mean that God has given us His divinity, although it was in the person of the Holy Ghost, and of that it is necessary to speak little, but to believe much.

Let us now consider the greatness of the Gift of the Holy Ghost with all its effects, inasmuch as He was sent by the Father and by our Lord Jesus Christ to His Church; or as He has been sent to each one of us. For it is true that we cannot thank God too much that He has made this singular Gift to the Church, on account of the benefits which result to us from it. It was certainly very appropriate that the Holy Ghost was sent under the form and figure of tongues of fire, because it is in the tongue that the power of the Church resides. Who does not know that all the greatest mysteries are performed by the tongue? Preaching is performed by the tongue; in Holy Baptism, without which no one can be saved, it is necessary that the tongue intervene to give the power to the water to wash us from our sins and iniquities, by the sacred words that are pronounced upon it; in the same way, the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass could not be celebrated without the ministry of the tongue, and likewise many other mysteries.

But consider, I pray you, this sacred and precious Gift of the Holy Ghost, especially as it was made to each one of us as individuals. We have already said that there were seven other Gifts included in it, namely those that the prophet Isaias enumerated: the spirit of Wisdom and Understanding, of Counsel and Fortitude, of Knowledge, Piety, and Fear. We have, accordingly, in these seven Gifts a mystical ladder whereby we may know whether we have received the Holy Ghost, because He is accustomed to communicate with souls in which these Gifts have descended and which he finds ready to receive Him.

Let us commence with the Gift of Fear because the prophet names that last. The Gift of Fear is the most common gift of all, because we see that even the wicked have fear and dread, when they hear death, judgment, and the eternal suffering of hell spoken of; but, nevertheless, that fear does not at all drive out of them their sin and iniquity, because they have not received it of the Holy Ghost. For the fear which is called the Gift of the Holy Ghost not only makes us fear the divine judgment, death, and the pains of hell, but it makes us fear God, as Our Sovereign Judge; consequently that fear drives out of us our sin and all that we know to be offensive to God.

Notice, I beg of you, what Isaias says, that all the Gifts of the Holy Ghost, which he enumerates, as we have said, rest upon the head of our divine Savior, and thereupon concludes that He was filled with the Fear of the Lord. But what do these words mean? For it is certain that Our Lord had no reason to fear, for He was sinless on account of the Hypostatic Union of His Soul and His human nature with His divinity. We ought to understand that our Lord was filled with Fear only for Him to bestow it upon all men, the perfect as well as the imperfect, because all have need of fear—those who are perfect need to fear lest they might forfeit their perfection, and the imperfect need to fear on account of their failure to attain perfection. And as we see that a bottle may be filled with water without any need of the water, and that the bottle is so hard that it is not at all moistened by it, so our blessed Lord was filled with Fear, not at all for Himself, because it could not aid Him, but because He received it to give to His brethren, that is to say, to men.

Let us pass to the other Gifts, for it is not necessary to say much about fear, especially in the place in which I am, because we ought to use it only as an aid to love when it is needed. And it is not necessary to be held in fear in order to pain or restrain one, because such fear is servile and harmful. But we ought to have that fear which is filial, we ought to retain it in our hearts in order that it may be quick to aid love, when love needs it, as I have said.

Let us now come to the Gift of Piety, which is the second Gift. Piety is nothing else than a fear that is not servile as is the fear that many have, but it is filial and loving, that which makes us regard God, not as our Judge but as our loving Father, whom we do not merely dread to displease, but whom we desire to please.

But it will help us very little to have the desire to please God and the fear of displeasing Him, if the Holy Ghost does not give us the third Gift, which is that of Knowledge, by which we are able to know and distinguish virtue from vice, that which is pleasing to God from that which is displeasing to Him. Many of the ancient philosophers knew well how to make this distinction. Aristotle has treated admirably of virtue; nevertheless, that did not leave the Doctors of the Church in doubt as to his salvation, because, having recognized the pathway of virtue, he did not walk in it. But the Gift of Knowledge which is given us by the Holy Ghost causes us to embrace the practice of the virtue which we recognize and makes us shun vice.

After these first three Gifts it is very necessary that the Holy Ghost give us the fourth, which is that of Fortitude. For otherwise it is likely that the others would in no respect help us, because it does not suffice to fear God and to have the desire to quit vice and to do good, and still less to know one from the other, if we do not proceed to practice the good, and therefore we have great need of the Gift of Fortitude; it is needful, however, for us to know in what it consists.

The Gift of Fortitude will not make us as Alexander, whom the worldlings call great. He conquered, indeed, nearly the whole earth with his arms, but, for all that, he did not have the Gift of Fortitude,-although one may vainly attribute it to him on account of his conquests which he made of the world, since his fortitude consisted only in the great number of his soldiers and in the instruments of war which he used. With these he beat down the walls of cities and destroyed castles, to subject all races to his empire. Nevertheless, he ought not to be praised for his fortitude, and still less for his courage, because, according to those who have written of him and those who have mentioned him in their histories, he did not have sufficient power over himself to abstain from a glass of wine, and was very often intoxicated. And as an evidence of his weakness, see him weep as a child, when a certain complimentary philosopher had just said to him that there were still many other worlds beyond that which he had conquered and subjected to his dominion. He had so great regret at not being able to conquer all that no one could console him: So great was his ambition.

Now, I pray you, make a slight comparison between the courage and bravery of such an one as Saint Paul, the first hermit, or, still better, the great Apostle Saint Paul, with the courage and bravery of Alexander, and you will see that the latter, having ruined cities, destroyed castles, and subjected the whole world to the strength of his arms, allowed himself finally to be conquered by himself. But on the other hand, our great Apostle was full of the strength of the Holy Ghost and seemed anxious to overrun and subjugate the whole world, not to throw down the walls of cities, but the hearts of men, until by his preaching he should subject the whole world to the service of the divine Master. Not content with that, see the power, I pray you, which he had over himself, carrying on a continual warfare against his flesh, subjecting all his affections, emotions, passions and inclinations to the rule of reason, and all to the most holy will of the divine Majesty. And it is in this that the Gift of Fortitude consists and the greatness of courage: in the overcoming oneself to subject oneself to God; in mortifying and cutting off from our souls all those superfluities and imperfections which produce self-love, without any reserve of even the little things, whatsoever they may be, undertaking courageously to attain the highest perfection without fearing the difficulties there may be in acquiring it.

But when we are so well resolved and strengthened as to undertake the true practice of virtue, it is very needful that we should have the Gift of Counsel, to choose what is most necessary, according to our vocation : for although it might always be good to practice all virtues, it is especially needful to know how to practice them in order and with discretion. How do I know but that someone will say that on this or that occasion it would not be more useful, or more expedient for me or for others, that I should practice the virtue of patience, either internally or externally, or else whether I ought not to join the one virtue with the other. To understand this it is necessary to have the Gift of Counsel in order to pursue that exercise which the Gift of Fortitude has made us undertake; and that we may not deceive ourselves by choosing the exercises of virtue according to our inclinations and not according to our needs, having regard only to the appearance of things and not to the true essence of virtue.

Now after the Gift of Counsel comes that of Understanding, whereby we are filled with a sense of the goodness and beauty of the mysteries of our holy Faith by means of meditation, and made to choose the precepts of internal perfection in the profound mysteries of the same. But note, dear friends, I pray you, that I spoke of meditation and prayer, and not of reasoning and mere speculation of the understanding, as do the theologians of the schools, for that would not be meditation and prayer, but study, inasmuch as it is necessary that meditation have for its end the love of God, and for that neither natural or acquired knowledge is at all needful. For a poor and simple woman, provided she is humble and holds the Faith, would be better able to perform a meditation than the greatest doctors who have less piety. So that with neither knowledge nor instruction she would at once see in regard to the Cross of the Savior, that precept of Christian perfection : “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” even in the heart of God; and in the mystery of the Incarnation she would see the same precept and still more of that humility and love of self-abnegation.

You see well what are the effects of the Gift of Understanding, which in addition to what we have already said enables us to penetrate and comprehend the truth of the mysteries of our faith, and that it is necessary for us to regard the true essence of the virtues and not the external appearances only ; and as it is useful for us to follow these true essences we are enabled to discern them by the Gift of Counsel.

But the Holy Ghost is not accustomed, when once He has been willing to bestow the six Gifts which we have mentioned, to leave the soul without adding to the others the seventh Gift, that of Wisdom. This is that satisfying knowledge of the things of God that gives to the soul a taste, a savor, an appreciation of, and an unspeakable satisfaction in, the practice of the counsels of Christian perfection, which it has recognized by the Gift of Understanding. This Wisdom bears the soul in a direction entirely different from that of worldly persons, who, contrary to the precepts of the Savior, esteem as happy only those who are rich and honored, or who live luxuriously. But when men have received the Gift of Understanding they regard as happy only the humble in heart, and those who show outwardly that mortification that proceeds from an inward renunciation and con tempt of themselves and of all that the world esteems, since it finds the precepts in the Heart itself of our Lord. For in reality, Wisdom is nothing else than love, which causes us to taste and perceive how sweet and gracious the Lord is. As the prophet says: “O taste and see that the Lord is sweet” (Psalm 33:9).

Now that last Gift of the Holy Ghost represents to us the last step of that mysterious ladder which Jacob saw and at the summit of which is God, who is ever ready to give to our souls the blessing of peace and make us taste the sweetness of His sacred breast, better a thousand times than the finest earthly wine.

I finish in considering that portion of the passage which I have selected for our instruction from the Acts of the Apostles, in which Saint Luke says that all those who were in the chamber received the Holy Ghost and spake divers languages as the Spirit gave them utterance. But they did not all speak after one fashion, because all men were not commissioned to preach the Gospel, as were Saint Peter and the other Apostles; for we cannot deny that there were women there, since Saint Luke says that there were about six score assembled in the chamber, and that assembled in prayer there was Mary, the Mother of Jesus, with the other women; and nevertheless they all spoke as the Spirit gave them utterance; that is to say that they who did not preach publicly encouraged one another in praising and magnifying God. But in addition to that, we should know that there is a certain kind of speaking that is of great effect but which takes place without words, and this is none other than the good example that we give our neighbors.

David says that the heavens declare the glory of God. And how do they do that? for the heavens do not speak. It is the beauty of the heavens and the firmament, for they invite men to admire the greatness of God and preach His wonderful works. That is what he would have us understand when in the same psalm he says that the days and nights commit to each other the duty of telling the glory of God. For who imagines that when we regard the beauty of the sky on a night that is serene, we are not in the least excited to admire and adore Him who made so many beautiful stars, or that when we see a fine day in the clear light of the sun, or even when our Lord sends us the showers to fertilize the earth so that it may bring forth plants, we are not likewise affected? What conclusion ought we to draw from this, my dear friends, if not that we who are much more than the heavens and all else that has been created, because all else has been made for us and not for themselves, that we, by the good example which we give our neighbor, are much more capable of proclaiming the glory of God than are the heavens and the stars? A good example is a sort of silent preaching that has great force. And although all have not received the gift of languages for preaching, yet all are able to do this most usefully. For is it not a greater marvel to see a soul adorned with many noble virtues than to see the heavens decorated with so many beautiful stars? The days give each other the duty of proclaiming the glory of God, says the prophet, and who does not see that the saints have done the same and resigned to each other that duty? Do we not see that to Saint Anthony Hilarion succeeds, and to Hilarion another? And so from one to another the report goes on from century to century, to bless, love, praise, and magnify that infinite goodness of our Lord, whom, with the Father, I pray to give you abundantly the grace of the Holy Ghost in this life and the joy of everlasting felicity in the other life. May it be so. Amen.