The Passions: A Salesian Perspective

Joseph Power OSFS

Introduction

It has been common to study and present various French authors’ ‘theory of the passions’ and the same has been done for St. Francis de Sales.[1] This articles is an attempt to focus more concretely on four of the many passions or emotions of human experience (anguish, grief, anger and love), recalling an episode or factor in the life of Francis de Sales in which he experienced that passion, and exploring some of his thinking and practical advice about it. Gradually something like a general theory may emerge, which could then be applied to all passions. Francis often turns to the Jesus of the gospels to illustrate the reality, the humanity and the possible holiness of passions. Nothing could remind us more forcefully that his teaching on the passions was not a philosophical inheritance or creation, but rather a seventeenth century example of theological anthropology, a faith-based Christo-centric study of human beings and how they function. As second Vatican Council states, “It is only in the mystery of the Word made flesh that the mystery of man truly becomes clear.”[2]

The Passion of Anguish

Various books speak about Francis's crisis as a young student in Paris, and the critical role it played in his life. There are various accounts of what actually happened, and even more interpretations of it. According to Jane de Chantal's account Francis “fell into a great temptation and an extreme anguish of mind.”[3] For our purposes we can prescind from the exact cause and nature of the temptation and focus on his resulting mental and emotional state, the ‘extreme anguish of mind’ which we might liken to anxiety, despair or depression. In any case, Francis became physically sick from it; he could not eat or sleep, he was getting very thin and pale, his skin yellow like wax and his tutor was very concerned. Years later Francis referred back to this episode as he was trying to encourage an unnamed gentleman who was recuperating from a serious illness:

What is of greater concern to me now is that everyone says that, besides your physical illness, you are suffering from a deep depression…. Please tell me, sir, what reason you have for remaining in this dark mood which is so harmful to you? I'm afraid your mind is still troubled by some fear of a sudden death and the judgement of God. That is, alas, a unique kind of anguish! My own soul, which once endured it for six weeks, is in a position to feel compassion for those who experience it.[4]

Throughout the rest of the letter Francis encouraged the man to hope, in spite of not feeling strong or courageous now, to trust that God would give him strength and courage when and where they were needed. He quoted a couple psalms reminiscent of the list he made for himself during his own crisis, and ultimately urged his correspondent to trust now and not to fear the future: “We must not be afraid of fear.” How successful this advice was we do not know. We do know that the young Francis was for a long time powerless to resolve the crisis or to escape the feelings; the feelings of anguish, anxiety and even despair had come upon him and did not leave him until the day he prayed before the statue of the Blessed virgin Mary. He poured his heart out in personal prayer and then in the Memorare. Suddenly he felt peace in his heart.

With this episode and the resulting emotions in mind, what can we say about Francis' thinking on the passions in general? Firstly, ‘Passions happen.’ They come over us; we cannot make them go away just by wanting them gone. Passions, at least initially, are something passive; passion, passive-it's the same root word. This is why Francis will say that simply feeling a passion can never be a sin; it is not something we do or choose, so it cannot be sinful. In a sermon he urged:

So we should not be astonished if, when someone points out our faults or takes us to task, we feel upset at the moment or even for a long time; or if we are disgusted by something that happens to us or is done to us contrary to our inclinations; not even if we have more affection for one [thing] rather than another. Indeed not, for these are natural passions which are not at all sinful in themselves. Don't think that when you feel emotions and repugnance you are sinning or offending in any way at all. Not at all, for all that is independent of us. These different emotions are in no way culpable.[5]

Secondly, because passions happen to us and are beyond our control, Francis, following St. Jerome and the tradition of Scholasticism, would not say Jesus had passions as such. Granted that he obviously “feared, desired, sorrowed and rejoiced to the point of tears, pallor, trembling and sweating blood,” these realities, Francis says, were given the respectful name of ‘pro-passions,’ i.e. in place of passions. “He endured or suffered nothing from them except as it seemed good to him and as it pleased him, for he governed them and kept them in order according to his will. We sinners cannot do this, for we endure and suffer such movements in disorder and against our wills.”[6] It is not necessary to accept the choice of this word, ‘pro-passion,’ in order to appreciate the point Francis is making about human passions: they affect us; we do not control them. In fact, since Jesus is ‘like us in all things but sin,’ and passions in themselves are not sinful, it would seem more consistent for Francis to say that Jesus had passions, but had them always under control.

Thirdly, because we are not in control of our passions we need to look beyond ourselves for help and ultimately to God; Francis found deliverance in prayer and he consistently urged others to seek it there as well. To Madame Brulart Francis wrote:

These little upsets, dear sister, bring us back to reality, make us reflect on our frailty, and cause us to have recourse more quickly to our Protector. St. Peter was walking very confidently on the waves; yet, when the wind arose and the waves seemed about to engulf him, he cried out ‘Lord, save me!’ and our Lord, taking hold of his hand said, ‘Man of little faith, why do you doubt?’ It's when we are disturbed by our passions, when we feel the winds and the storm of temptation, that we call upon our Saviour, for He allows us to be upset only to incite us to call out to Him more fervently. Finally don't be angry, or at least don't be agitated over the fact that you've been agitated; don't be disturbed at having been disturbed; don't be upset at the fact that these annoying passions have upset you. But very gently put your heart back into the hands of our Lord, begging Him to heal it.[7]

According to St. Francis' experience and teaching, passions happen, and in us they happen beyond our control; so to feel a passion is not a sin, actually it can make us turn to God for help.

The Passion of Grief

In 1607 Francis' younger sister, Jeanne, who had been staying for some months with Madame de Chantal in Burgundy suddenly and inexplicably died at the age of fourteen. Jane de Chantal was grief-stricken and Francis as well. On November 2 he wrote to her, first telling her how his mother had taken the news of her daughter's death: “I never saw a more tranquil grief; she shed a great many tears because of the anguish of her heart, but there was no rebellion. And yet Jeanne was her child.”[8] Then, having assured Jane of his mother's gratitude to her, Francis continues: “I know very well that you would like to ask me: And you, how did you deal with it? Yes, because you desire to know what I do. Well, my daughter, I am as human as can be. My heart was more affected than I would have ever have thought possible.[9] This letter of 1607 is original and the only context of this famous saying, and the idiomatic translation, “I am as human as can be” fits the context and the idiom, like a glove. In acknowledging his feelings of grief, Francis is not apologising for being ‘human and no more.’ He is rather saying that in his grieving he is fully human, indeed as human as anyone could be. It is the factual recognition that to be human is to have feelings; and he, the bishop and spiritual director, is as human as anyone. Far from an apology, it is a realistic affirmation of a very human quality. In this letter, he acknowledged other emotions as well:

My heart was more affected than I would have ever thought possible but the truth is that my mother's grief and your own added a lot to it, for I was afraid for your heart and my mother's. But beyond that, O live Jesus! I will always side with divine providence which does everything well and arranges all things for the best… Let us allow God to harvest what he has planted in his orchard; he takes everything in its season.[10]

After reflecting on his personal relationship with his little sister (her baptism was the very first exercise of his priesthood) and on his hopes for her, he concludes: “But still, my daughter, in the middle of my heart of flesh which was so affected by this death I perceived quite palpably a certain suavity, a peacefulness, and a gentle repose of my spirit in divine Providence which spread over my soul a profound contentment in the midst of its suffering. So there you have [all] my emotions described as well as I can.”[11] This remarkable letter, describing and commenting on how his mother, he himself and, his friend Jane reacted to the death of a child provides much to reflect on. On the one hand all three felt the death deeply and were able to express their grief in words and, no doubt, in tears. All this Francis sees as being fully in accord with being human and with being holy. However, he then turns his attention to what he has heard about the baroness’s response to the death: “I didn't think it good that you offered your own life or that of one of your own children in exchange for that of the deceased. No, my dear daughter.”[12] Francis is not sure of what Jane actually said or vowed, but he uses the occasion to say what is acceptable grieving and what is not. We may pray for the lives of our loved ones, “but to say to God, leave this one and take that one - that, my dear daughter we must not say.”

In suggesting that there are limits to the way a Christian expresses grief, Francis never denies or urges anyone to deny the feelings themselves. In fact, he helps them understand how it is possible that they feel different things at different levels of their psyche. For example, in the Treatise on the Love of God, Francis writes that, in the face of death, his own or his mother's,“if the illness is victorious over the remedies and brings death, as soon as I know the outcome I will acquiesce lovingly in the highest point of my spirit, in spite of all the repugnance of the lower faculties of my soul.” [13] Part of him would be struggling, resisting, but part of him would be able to acquiesce, that is the summit or supreme point of the soul. Back in the same letter to Jane de Chantal, Francis acknowledges that he is teaching her a very lofty lesson in urging her to allow God to take whatever He wills whenever He wills:

When we will have nothing but God, is that not a lot? Alas the Son of God, my dear Jesus on the cross barely had that much when...he was abandoned and left by Him; and with a torrent of passions carrying his ship off to desolation, scarcely did he perceive the compass needle which not only pointed [to God] but was inseparably united with his Father. Yes he was one with the Father but his inferior part neither knew or perceived anything of all that.[14]

Again the example of Jesus: like us in all things, with an ‘inferior part’ of his soul in which he suffered greatly while at the same time his highest point (the compass needle) was united with God. Drawing on this episode and Francis's reflection on it, let us spell out other components of his general theory of the passions and his consequent advice about how to deal with them.

Firstly, passions are human. To have passions is part of being human, i.e. of being an embodied spirit or an ‘inspirited’ body. For Francis passions always implied a physical component or manifestation. He tells the story from Augustine about the Stoic who denied that he had passions and yet, at the prospect of being ship-wrecked, had clearly been affected by fear, “and by such fear as to extend its effects to his eyes, face and countenance, and consequently to be a passion.”[15] Or again the fact that Jesus “feared, desired, sorrowed and rejoiced to the point of tears, pallor, trembling and sweating blood”[16] proves to Francis that these physical manifestations are part of being human. As we noted above, these passions, which are part of our nature, exist in sinful human beings and are not completely in our control; they are more often than not sources of temptation, trials and sometimes sin. This helps account for the fact that, in spite of his insistence on the humanness of passions, Francis often seems to talk about them ‘negatively,’ i.e. as a source of temptation, turmoil, and a constant challenge to manage.[17] Passions are human, i.e. part of being human, and, like all the other parts they have been ‘wounded’ by sin but not thereby rendered bad in themselves.

Secondly people are more than their passions. Human beings are composed of body and spirit or soul and according to Francis and a tradition from Augustine the soul is ‘composed’ of various ‘parts:’ the lower part which reasons according to sense data, the superior part which reasons on the basis of human and Christian knowledge, and the ‘highest point’ or ‘summit,’ where God touches us, where by faith, hope and charity we touch God, and where no matter what else happens we can acquiesce to God and God's will. It is not easy to understand this distinction exactly in St. Francis or to explain it for us today. For our present purposes, it may be enough to say that, when grief (or any other passion) invades the soul and seems to totally inundate it, there is still part of us which can cling to God. Again Francis turns to the example of Jesus, especially in Gethsemane, when his soul “was sorrowful even unto death” and when he prayed that the chalice of his passion might betaken away from him:

The Saviour himself thus exercised the inferior part and testified to the fact that, according to it and its considerations, his will was inclined to avoid grief and pain. Afterwards, he showed that he possessed the superior part, by which he adhered inviolably to the eternal will and to the decree made by his heavenly Father….In spite of the repugnance of the inferior part of reason, he said, 'Ah, no, my Father, not my will but thine be done.'[18]

A reasoning part of Jesus' soul (not just his basic instinct) was inclined to avoid grief and pain. “When he says 'my will,' he speaks of his will according to the inferior part; in so far as he says it voluntarily, he shows that he has a superior will.”[19] Whenever a person has ‘mixed emotions,’ when part of her wants one thing and part wants something else, that person is experiencing what Francis calls the higher and lower parts of the soul. This understanding, which would take another article to develop adequately, has obvious applications when it comes to dealing with various passions and emotions.

The Passion of Anger

In this section, instead of recalling a specific incident of Francis's life when he was angry (?) I would like to begin by evoking two opposing views about his personality and ‘temperament.’ From his friends and acquaintances who gave formal testimony at the process of his beatification there emerges a picture of a Francis who was by nature very prone to anger, a person with a choleric temperament, who struggled against this tendency all his life, with such success that he became famous for his gentleness and peacefulness. A few biographers have questioned the historical accuracy of that picture. They do not put uncritical confidence in the testimony of those who were contributing to a process of canonization; for a person to have struggled against his naturally angry temperament with such success is even more ‘heroic virtue.’ These authors also point to Francis' early years and to the testimony of his nurse: “never have I known a child who had a better character and a better temperament.” Those who favour this view would say that Francis was passionate, yes, but especially choleric, no.[20]

On the other hand the most thorough biographer of our day, Fr. Lajeunie, reviews the evidence and concludes that “the legend of the 'naturally gentle' Francis should be relegated to the realm of fiction.”[21] This debate among historians may never be resolved. All agree that Francis had to struggle with anger all his life and yet showed very little of it. Can anyone ever say how much he had to struggle, how naturally angry or gentle he was? On what scale could such things be weighed? The fact is that, whatever anger Francis felt, he managed to control it very well. His experience of this passion and his way of dealing with it can lead us to venture a few more generalisations about passions in his life and his advice about how to deal with them.

Firstly, passions persist. Passions not only happen and are part of being human, but, in case we had any doubt about it, they are a permanent part of life. This is against those who want to think that by dint of long years of controlling their passions they will overcome them totally, eliminate them and live as reasonable Christian people. Francis often refutes the position which he equates with the Stoic ideal of ‘a-patheia’, means non-feeling. He insists that as long as we are in this life we will feel passions; it goes with being a composite spirit-body. Furthermore, he says that God created human beings like that so that even as we strive to accept the reality of our passions, we also need to channel and control them.[22]

This is a classic example of what Francis means by “living between the one will of God and the other.” In fact, it was passions he was speaking of when he coined that phrase in the Treatise on the Love of God, using the image of being besieged by passions: “Let us live courageously between the one will of God and the other, suffering with patience when we are assailed and valiantly trying to make headway against our assailants and to resist them.”[23] The one will of God, the ‘will of good pleasure,’ is revealed in the reality of our passions; the other will of God, the ‘signified will,’ is that we control and channel them. To live between the one and the other requires courage: courage to accept that we have passions, and at the same time courage to keep on dealing with them.

Secondly, What then are we supposed to do with these passions that will always be with us? In French Francis is able to say very succinctly that it is one thing to feel a passion (sentir); it is something else to consent (consentir) to it. The former is what happens to us; the latter is what we do about it; the former is an event to be accepted, the latter engages morality, i.e. it raises questions of right and wrong.[24] Sometimes it is right to consent to a passion, namely when it is legitimate and ‘reasonably’ moving us in a good direction. That is easy to see regarding sadness: a legitimate sadness can be consented to as long as it moves us, for example, to compassion or to repentance. Any other kind of sadness is a temptation, as Francis writes in the Introduction to the Devout Life.[25]

But sometimes, once a passion is felt, it is wrong to consent to it, because it is not legitimate (e.g. there's no real reason to lose one's temper), or because it moves us to excess in a bad direction, e.g. anger leading to violence. Here Francis repeatedly voices a word of caution: even though anger is sometimes justifiable and the ‘holy zeal’ of great saints can use and control it, the rest of us who cannot control it had best not admit it at all. “Once anger or audacity is aroused and cannot be kept within the limits of reason, it carries the heart into disorder so that zeal is thus practised indiscreetly and inordinately, thus making it bad and worthy of blame.”[26] Francis was very cautious about anger; some might interpret that as confirming his angry temperament, but the fact is that he advises all his readers not to consent to anger at all. It is OK to feel it; just do not ‘fuel’ it. But isn't this where so many people suffer psychological harm? It sounds like Francis is advising us to repress or stifle anger, and everybody knows how that can lead to future irruptions or irrational behaviour. However, no; the words Francis used in this regard could never be translated as ‘repress.’ Repressing anger or any other emotion is a form of denial: it is the conscious mind saying “I am not angry!” thereby forcing the emotion into the subconscious. Francis' approach is quite different. He does say that we should repel passions, or resist their attacks and prevent their effects by refusing to consent to them. In fact, because we will never eliminate them, we have to keep on resisting them.

The French words Francis used most frequently in this context was manier, literally to handle, and ranger to put or keep in order; we might say to ‘manage’ our passions. In one of the key places where Francis uses these words he immediately adds images which clarify his meaning. Unlike the few great servants of God who were able to control their passions and regulate their anger, the rest of us have no such control over our emotions. “Our horse is not so well disciplined that we can make him gallop or come to a stop at will.”[27] While this may sound like taming the ‘animal’ within and its ‘unbridled passions,’ it is actually an image evoking maximum co-operation with another part of ourselves while making it clear who is in charge. A human being in control of passions is like a jockey in perfect sync with his mount.

Another series of revealing images concerns not what a person might do with his or her passions, but what the love of God does when it begins to reign in a person. “God's love and self-love are within our heart as Esau and Jacob were in Rebecca's womb…and cause it a great travail,” but the latter is destined to serve the former. Francis spells out how this happens.[28] Ultimately Francis says that when sacred love touches our passions it transforms them totally: “O holy alchemy! O divine elixir by which the metal of our passions, affections, and actions is wholly changed into most pure gold of heavenly love!”[29] The transforming power of God's love over our passions is the ultimate goal; but the very fact that Francis holds it up for us is proof that passions are to be redeemed and glorified by love. It is also a reminder that we have yet to speak of another central passion, that of love.

The Passion of Love

How could we discuss the passions in St. Francis de Sales without mentioning what he calls the ‘primary and principal’ passion, that of love? On the other hand, how can we say anything useful on such a vast topic in this short article? First, we will speak mainly of love as a passion, distinguishing it from all the other forms love takes on: affection, friendship, love for family, for God, etc. Then we will briefly apply to love as a passion what we have been saying about the other passions. This will serve as a summary sketch of Francis' teaching on the passions. Finally, we will conclude by illustrating this teaching as it applies to Francis's experience of spiritual friendship, especially his friendship with St. Jane de Chantal.

Passions are distinct from Affections

Affections are to the higher part of the soul what passions are to the lower. Affection is a stirring of the rational appetite, i.e. of the will: we are moved to will something. Passion is a stirring of the sense appetite. Remember how Francis said that Jesus, in the lower part of his soul, prayed: “Let this chalice pass me by,” but with the higher, “Thy will be done.”? That illustrates the difference between passion and affection. Affections are often more subtle, harder to detect, but no less real than passions. For example, a parent who is sad to see a daughter go off to college, yet wants her to go, and sees her off as cheerfully as she can, is experiencing both a passion and an affection, and is choosing to act on the affection. The language of ‘affections’ is familiar to those who have read the Introduction to a Devout Life. In Francis’ basic method of prayer, ‘considerations’ are meant to lead to ‘affections,’ or ‘good movements of the will.’[30] It is possible to make inner acts of love, forgiveness, etc., whether we feel anything emotionally or not.

Affections are not invariably for the good (any more than are passions). In the Introduction to the Devout Life Francis urges the devout person to purge oneself not only of any affection to mortal sin, but also from affections to venial sin or to ‘useless and dangerous things.’[31] On the other hand, affections are unlike passions in that as movements of the rational appetite or will they can be more under our control or some affections (e.g. for sin) can and should be eliminated. Distinguishing passions from affections can help in understanding both; the fact is they both exist and interact in each of us all the time.

Love-as-Passion is like other passions

Let us focus then on love-as-passion, i.e. as a natural movement of the sense appetite, and apply to it what we have learned about the other passions discussed and about passions in general: Love happens. People fall in love; people can be infatuated or strongly attracted to one another. The first stirring of such passion is not in our control. We may need to turn to God for help. Love as a passion is part of being human: it affects the whole composite that we are, and has a physical component; not just the obvious sexual component but what we might call the ‘romantic’: a ‘physical attraction,’ perhaps a quickening of the heart beat, just wanting to be with a person, e.g. a woman in her eighties meets an ‘old flame.’ Love as passion exists in a wounded humanity; we are vulnerable and prone to excess, to be swept away even in initially innocent relationships, as Francis details in the Introduction to the Devout Life.[32] Yet it is possible to love a person primarily on the level of affections and to act from there, i.e. to control the passion level, with God's help. In fact, God's love growing within us can transform the passion of love, making it serve and nourish a higher love. Otherwise, spiritual friendship would not be possible.

For most Christians, however, love as passion exists above all within the sacrament of marriage. St. Francis had some original and remarkable ideas on marriage. It is remarkable to note down that in our century have Catholics got beyond the effects of Jansenism so that the idea of marriage inspired by the Bishop of Geneva can be reborn and disseminated. It is good to know that Francis had a very positive view of love and marriage. For,

Bringing to completion an edifice for which others had laid the foundational premises, Francis de Sales has in a way rescued love and integrated it into the framework of Christian marriage. He successfully applied the classic teaching of the Church regarding passions, remarkably formulated by the Fathers who were careful to steer clear of the Stoic position. There was never any question of denying or condemning love or trying to root it out or fight it. Rather, received as a given of nature, as a creation of God, though a wounded one, tarnished by sin and given over to evil, it finds itself thereafter oriented toward the sacrament capable of giving it the framework in which it will be able to flourish, and capable of leading a husband and wife to appreciate better the love God has for them.[33]

Passion and spiritual friendship

Now, what about spiritual friendship, and specifically that of Francis and Jane? Theirs was, no doubt, a profound affection, residing above all in the ‘higher part,’ the supreme point of the soul, the heart of hearts, but did it have an emotional or passionate dimension? To even ask this question may seem impertinent, to attempt an answer, presumptuous. Let us simply conclude by citing the observations of two scholars who have studied this unique friendship as thoroughly as have any, ever. In the opinion of Wendy M. Wright:

Francis assured Jeanne that his affection for her was ‘whiter than the snow and purer than the sun’ and that his ardour to hear from her was ‘paternal and more than paternal.’ His concern was slight that she would misinterpret his meanings, but he was aware that others might fail to understand the nature of the passionate bond between them… The language that passed between the bishop and the widow, while influenced in tone by the love vocabulary available to them through the Christian contemplative tradition, was not a language very commonly used to convey the sentiments of relationships between chaste men and women. He was aware, though not afraid, of the fact that their passionate interchange could be misconstrued. The letters that he sent to her, although utilising images familiar to the tradition, were not formulaic. Nor did he write in quite the same manner to others he knew. For her alone was reserved the language of union. For her alone the language of the heart was given full sway.[34]

According to another scholar, Terence Mc Goldrick:

Some authors tend to purify too much their friendship saying it is not a human love because it is free from emotion. I would rather say it was an eminently human love, full of emotion. But an emotion turned outward, not craving to have happiness by having another person's love. True it was not like two people loving each other and only each other in the intimacy marriage is supposed to be, but it was passionate in its own way. It comes through in their letters in a way that sometimes is even embarrassing for many readers. They had from the beginning a very natural and human attraction to each other, which was sexual only in so far as their beings are sexual and thereby complementary. Jane would later confess that throughout her life she suffered all kinds of temptations but never against purity. Francis interpreted that strong attraction as God somehow speaking to him and immediately gave himself to her good. Emotion is rather one of the great impulses of their friendship. If grace works in human ways, what better way to move us than by passion? [35]