An open book and a simple ceramic mug on a wooden table, warm morning light filtering through sheer curtains

a passage to keep

On Household Troubles

by St. Francis de Sales

from his counsels on the gentle life

A tender word for the woman keeping a home — that the small worries and vexations of the day are not obstacles to holiness, but the very ground of it.

The many troubles in your household will tend to your edification, if you strive to bear them all in gentleness, patience, and kindness.
Keep this ever before you, and remember constantly that God's loving eyes are upon you amid all these little worries and vexations, watching whether you take them as He would desire.
Offer up all such occasions to Him, and if sometimes you are put out, and give way to impatience, do not be discouraged, but make haste to regain your lost composure.

— St. Francis de Sales

to sit with

A Reflection

There is a quiet permission tucked inside this counsel — permission to be human in the middle of an ordinary day. The burnt toast, the spilled cup, the third interruption before breakfast: de Sales does not call them obstacles to a holy life. He calls them the very material of one.

If you have lost your composure today, do not waste the afternoon scolding yourself for it. Make haste, he says — gently, without panic — to regain it. God's loving eyes have not left you. They never do.

✦ did this stir your spirit?

Share this with a heart that needs it

selah.

A few words to carry into the quiet hours.

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