The following essays appear as a feature item in On the Boards --
the playbill for the ACT ONE theatre program at DeSales University.

You Can't Take It With You

Anne of Green Gables

Of Mice and Men

Dance Ensemble Concert

Guys and Dolls

No kidding! We’ve all heard it before and with little thought we know it’s patently true: “you can’t take it with you.”

But there’s much kidding in the Pulitzer Prize winning social farce being performed on the Labuda Center’s main stage. Amid the happy madness of the young lovers’ families, and the madcap goings-on of their households, we can and should laugh at the encounters of the characters. But we might also consider learning from them.

For our patron, St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622), the drama of falling in love, getting married, and living life together is not merely the singular experience of two individuals. It is part of the divine magic, an essential cycle in the providential ordering of human history.

In his letters, he writes about what “a happy thing (it is) when two souls meet who love each other” in fulfillment of God’s plan for them and for the world. In his Introduction to the Devout Life, he notes that marriage is “honorable to all persons, in all persons, and in all things, that is, in all its parts.” Based on this comprehensive view of marital love – in which “there is communication of life, work, goods, affection, and indissoluble fidelity” – he teaches that marriage is the highest form of friendship.

But this Doctor of the Church is also a realist. He is quick to point out in his letters that “the state of marriage is one that requires more virtue and constancy than any other,” and he adds that “it is a perpetual exercise of mortification”! The foibles and follies that contribute to the everyday experience of a married couple are, in his view, distinctive of the all-too-human reality of relationships ... and indicative of our never-ending need for humility. And he reminds us that “when humility and meekness are good and true they preserve us from the inflammation and swelling that injuries usually cause in our hearts.”

In other words, when we learn to laugh at ourselves, and especially when we can laugh together with the ones we love, then we can be at peace. Then, realizing that you really can’t take it with you, we will enjoy here and now all that we have and all that we are.

Imaginative, precocious, chatty, and charming – the little girl about whom this comfy and cozy show is written is nevertheless rather astute. To her is attributed this lyrical lesson: “You never know what’s around the bend / You just might find a bosom friend.”

The playful drama of the young orphan growing up on a picturesque farmland – complete with adolescent romance and misadventures – tells a tale that delights us all. In this fiction we seek to find the goods and values that making growing up – at whatever age – a happy adventure. No wonder this Anne, which her red-dyed pigtails, has become known in 36 languages and revered as an “icon” of children’s literature.

Whether on an English isle or an American city – or even in our Valley – one key to the narration of this story, and thus central to the development of our life stories, is the discovery of a “bosom friend.” The same holds true in the lives of saints, and here in Center Valley, we have a shining example of that in the lives of our patrons: Francis de Sales (1567-1622) and Jane de Chantal (1572-1641).

Their long-time relationship, described by biographer André Ravier as “one of the greatest friendships that ever bound a [spiritual] director and his disciple,” is disclosed in the more than four hundred letters that Francis wrote to Jane! Together they experienced reciprocal affection, supportive concern, heartfelt dreams, and, ultimately, numerous crosses. As Wendy Wright puts it, “This friendship, born of their common love of God, was nurtured by their shared delight in each other’s spiritual gifts and their mutual quest for perfection.” They embodied what Francis de Sales would later write as an important instruction in his Introduction to the Devout Life: “Love everyone with a deep love based on charity ... but form friendships only with those who can share virtuous things with you.”

Whether in the history of holy patrons, or the frolicking exploits of the characters on stage, or the real relationships we have with our best good friends, may we always rejoice in the enduring value of those with whom we share the ups and downs of life.

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click here for a full list of commentaries from the Salesian Center for Faith & Culture

This Page Last Updated on 11/20/09