Are not religious, men and women, in a country of migration? Do they not make a passage from the world into religion, as into a place of springtime, to chant the divine praises, and to avoid the bitter cold of the world? Oh! Is it not for this that they enter religion where it is always springtime and warm, the Sun of Justice [Mat. 3:20] most usually darting His rays upon religious hearts — not warming less in enlightening them than He enlightens in warming them? What is the world but an extremely cold winter where there are only frozen and icy souls? I mean those in the world and of the world, for I know well enough that one can live perfectly in any kind of vocation, in the world as well as in religion, and provided one is so resolved, one can attain a high degree of perfection anywhere. But ordinarily speaking, in the world one almost always meets only icy hearts. They are so cold and so slightly warmed by this Supreme Fire from which all other fires draw their origin and their heat! As it is the sun that gives heat to everything on earth, yes, even to fire which without it could not produce heat,[15] so the love of God is this Sun which gives heat to the human heart when it is disposed to receive it. Without this Sacred Fire it would remain unspeakably cold.
Our Lady, then, like religious, was in a country of migration. But, 0 God! How admirably well she made this migration, passing from one degree of perfection to a higher. Briefly, her life was nothing else but a continual passage from virtue to virtue [Ps. 84:6,8]. In this all religious ought to imitate her as perfectly as they can, since they are the ones who are closer to her than all others. For doubtless, they are those virgins of whom the Psalmist says: Behind her the virgins of her train are brought to the King [Ps. 45:15]. Love never says; "Enough, sufficient." It desires to have the courage always to progress on the way of the will of the Beloved.
My second remark upon the Gospel is this: Our Lady was found by the angel in the city of Nazareth. Now, "Nazareth" means "flower." She was then in the city of flowers — or flowery city. Oh, how well this city represents religion! For what is religion but a flowering city, or a house all strewn with flowers, since the Rules and statutes which religious observe are as so many flowers? Mortifications, humiliations, prayers — in short, all the exercises are nothing else than the practice of virtues which are like beautiful flowers shedding their exceedingly sweet perfume before the Divine Majesty. Now what is religion but a garden sown with flowers, very pleasing to the sight, and with fragrance very healthful to the scent of those who notice them?
So it is said of the most holy Virgin that she was in a flowery city. What is she herself but a flower chosen from among all others for her rare beauty and excellence? A flower which, because of its incomparably sweet fragrance, has the property of engendering and producing other flowers. And do you not know that she is that garden, enclosed and shut tight in the Song of Songs, all empearled and enamelled? [Song 4:12]. An enclosed garden, my sister, my bride, an enclosed garden. This repetition is not without mystery. To whom belong, I ask you, so many flowers with which the Church is filled and so embellished and adorned, if not to the most holy Virgin, whose example produced them all? Is it not through her that the Church is strewn with the roses of martyrs, invincible in their constancy; marigolds of so many holy confessors; violets of so many holy widows who are little, humble, lowly like these flowers, but who spread abroad a good and fragrant perfume? Finally, is it not to her that in a special way belong so many white lilies, so many pure souls, and so many virgins so innocent and guileless, since it has been to imitate her example that so many virgins have consecrated their hearts and bodies to the Divine Majesty by a determination and an indissoluble vow to preserve their virginity and purity.
There are some Doctors who hold that she instituted congregations of young girls, and that when she went to Ephesus with her dear adopted son, St. John, she founded one to which she herself gave Rules and Constitutions. Oh, what a divine Abbess! Oh, what happy religious to have been established by this divine Doctor![16]
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[1] The Blessed Virgin Mary. Refer also the note on The Assumption.
[2] Cf. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 5, Chapter 2.
[3] Cf. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 3, Chapter 10.
[4] Cf. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 9, Chapter 9.
[5] Cf. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 5, Chapter 11; Sermon for Nov. 21, 1617.
[6] Cf. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 10, Chapter 4 and Chapter 5.
[7] Cf. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 2, Chapter 13, Chapter 21; Conferences, I; Sermon for Nov. 21, 1617.
[8] Cf. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 7, Chapter 2.
[9] The second point which St. Francis de Sales developed is missing from the original manuscripts.
[10] Cf. Conferences, VIII.
[11] As was noted above, St. Francis' second point is missing from the original manuscripts. The editor of the 1641 edition of his works added this fragment from another of St. Francis' sermons. The editor of the Annecy edition, from which this translation is made, kept this addition. We are doing the same. — Editor.
[12] Cf. Sermon for Sept. 10, 1620.
[13] Refer note on Sermon for September 10, 1620.
[14] Cf. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 8, Chapter 5.
[15] Cf. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 7, Chapter 5.
[16] The fragment ends here, somewhat abruptly.