In a letter to one of his younger sisters, Saint Francis de Sales writes,
I never stop wishing you and my dear brother-in-law countless blessings from heaven, especially that of always being transfigured in our Lord. How beautiful is His face, how kind and amazingly gentle His eyes, and how good it is to be near Him on the glorious mountain!
For Francis as for many of the Eastern Fathers, the Transfiguration is an event to be realized in our mortal flesh. It does not stop with Jesus’ radiant (and gentle) beauty. Through the grace of the Spirit, our flesh is taken up into the spirit, spiritualized, filled with a kind of obscure light, made beautiful, gentle.
Gentle eyes. Gentleness. In glory and in light. These takes of Saint Francis on the transfiguration of the body by the Spirit are not surprising – either in themselves or in the emphasis that one might expect him to give; for, for Francis, love is gentle as much as possible. For Francis speaking about the Transfiguration on Mount Tabor, the gentle light ought to penetrate our face, our eyes, and our very gestures or comportment of these external signs of life in us. Prayer manifests itself outwardly – and increasingly so as the depth of prayer coincides more with God’s depth than with our own. It changes the lines of our face, the light of our eyes, the gentleness of our demeanour.
And while still reflecting on this theme (for the letter in question was written on the Feast of the Transfiguration), Saint Francis makes it clear that he is not wishing the impossible for his sister, who is married, has a family, and lives in the hustle and bustle of the world:
solitude has its assaults, the world its busyness; in either place we must be courageous…
– and God provides the grace needed for each and every vocation. Indeed, in every case, virtue is in relation to our neighbours:
Take my word for it: true virtue is not produced by outward repose, any more than healthy dish are raised in the stagnant waters of swamps.
Although outward repose may have a purpose, it is not decisive. The decisive fact is how we are gentle, which is to say reposed, inside – and this peace has a radiation of its own, even down to our fingertips, the lines of our face, the light of our eyes, our gentleness made manifest.
Some related posts:
Contemplative in the Mud 