Francis de Sales conversations

After lunch, or rather dinner (pranzo) today, I took a stroll in the upper courtyard of the university with Fr Morand Wirth, who is one of our experts on Francis de Sales. Last year during my stay here we met quite often, since he was writing a book on the saint's educational approach and I was teaching the course that he normally taught on the main traits of the spirituality of St Francis de Sales.

I was thrilled to hear of his research. He is tracing references to the biblical phrase "Give me souls, take away the rest" from Genesis -- a saying that Don Bosco attributed to Francis de Sales and adopted as his personal motto and the motto of the congregation. I too have written a sketchy article on this, and in fact the whole Salesian Society is gathering around this phrase as we prepare for the General Chapter slated for 2008. «Da mihi animas, cetera tolle» will be the theme, in fact, of that chapter.

Well, back to don Morand. He tells me that the Fathers of the Church used to use this phrase to point to the influence of evil in the world. In fact, in Genesis, it is the King of Sodom who tells Abraham, after the freeing of Lot and others who had been enslaved, to simply give him back his own people that had been held hostage and keep the booty for himself. Abraham refuses to do this, being the man of Faith that he is, and give back everything, as well as a 10th of all his own recovered goods to the priest-king of Salem. Now since it is the King of Sodom who makes the request, the Fathers, particularly those of the Alexandrian School, read into this in light of the later skirmish between the sons of light and the citizens of Sodom. They see the request as Satanic.

John Chrysostom knows the Alexandrian interpretation but he does not agree, and proposes that we simply understand the passage in the literal and not the allegorical sense. His voice, however, is not strong enough to drown out the opinion presented by the Alexandrians.

Oh well… but that's not really the point. The first time that the da mihi animas is taken in a pastoral sense, says Morand, seems to be in the Spirit of Blessed Francis de Sales written by Jean Pierre Camus. Within a generation of the publication of that book, many pastoral and spiritual writers, particularly among those of the French School, cite the phrase in the way attributed to Francis de Sales. And while Don Bosco also can cite the literal sense in his book of Salvation History, when he applies the words to the work of the Oratory, he uses the pastoral sense as found in Camus.

Is Don Bosco right in ascribing the phrase in its pastoral meaning to Francis de Sales? Morand Writh says that his research is bringing him to this conclusion. I look forward to seeing his article published on this theme. It is exciting, really.

Okay -- it is exciting for us professor types, I suppose. For others a good gelato would be more exiting still. However, it is still winter and Lent, therefore I will forgo the gelato.

After all that intellectual and mystical excitement, I changed clothes and took a power walk around the area for 40 minutes, finally sweating out all the stuff of the last few days.