Every Friday is Fenelon Friday, where we’ll drink from the very deep well of my favorite 17th century French Bishop in the Catholic Church. (Everyone should have a little Fenelon with their coffee in the morning…) Francois de Salignac de La Mothe-Fenelon (born 1651) was a mentor to a number of younger men on the court of Louis XIV. In fact, he was given the responsibility of raising the young man who would proceed Louis XIV to the throne of France (the King’s grandson). Many of Fenelon’s writings are actually letters he wrote to some of these young leaders as they sought to walk the life of faith in the face of opposition and adversity. Fenelon’s teachings were met with resistance within the Catholic Church because they aligned more with Reformation teachings than with Catholic dogma at times, and his hope was that once his student became the King of France, he would be instrumental in the reformation of the Catholic Church and bring a real witness of Jesus Christ to France. Those hopes were dashed in 1712 with the premature death of the King’s grandson. Fenelon died not long after that in 1715 at the age of 63, but his teachings live on and continue to influence 300 years after he died. He has radically transformed my life.
Self-Love
You are too self-conscious. You also let your feelings guide you too much. As soon as prayer stops bringing you deep comfort, you become discouraged. Do you want to find peace? Be less infatuated with yourself, and more concerned with pleasing God.
Self-love will let you become sentimental about yourself and overly concerned with your problems. You will find yourself spending all your time worrying about your troubles. Soon all this worry will cloud over the sense of God’s presence in your life, and then you will really be depressed. Paul said, “I do not judge myself.” Take his advice and you will do well. Give God a free reign to work within you, and then don’t spend all your time being introspective.
God will show you what displeases Him and all you have to do is simply turn away from what is unworthy of your Beloved. Stop being to taken up with yourself!
Your old nature wants to be perfect. It will push you in every way to be an outstanding Christian. Please avoid this trap. Simply follow the Lord. You do not need to see yourself as a wise, strong and virtuous person. Just be a little child.
Francois Salignac de la Mothe Fenelon, The Seeking Heart, pp. 105.
This is a letter that I’ve needed to read and re-read over the years. I can get so caught up in “me” and my little problems at times, that I miss what God has for me. Ways He wants to bring glory to His name, yet I’m unable to see it because I’m so self-focused. Because of my natural wiring, I can have the tendency, like Fenelon says here, to be overly concerned with my problems. I’ve had to discipline myself to turn that mechanism off and let certain problems deal with themselves for the time being. That’s so hard! I like to fix things… and for me, in order to really fix certain things, I need to think about them, ruminate on them, devise plans and strategies, wonder, ponder… It kills the life in me sometimes!
And the reality of what Fenelon is saying is that my motives probably aren’t pure even in wanting to solve the problem in the first place - because my motives are most likely driven by self-love! I’ve found that to be so true. Being a people-pleaser, I’ve had the tendency to do things that will right my reputation at almost any cost, or spend way too much energy in changing someone’s perception of me, sometimes under the guise of “doing the right thing.” But almost always, the motivation is saving face and elevating self.
Fenelon’s cure: simply follow the Lord. Just be a little child. Stop being so taken up with yourself. Easy for him to say! It’s one of the hardest and most painful paths I’ve tried to walk… but there’s beauty in the pain, and it’s in this beautiful pain where my heart has been most dramatically changed. I pray the same for you. It’s hard, but it’s so worth keeping on and not giving up.
I’m definitely not there yet. But, Lord willing, I’ll continue to make progress.
