LETTER XXIV.
Imperfection only is intolerant of imperfection.
It has seemed to me that you have need of more enlargedness of heart in relation to the defects of others. I know that you cannot help seeing them when they come before you, nor prevent the opinions you involuntarily form concerning the motives of some of those about you. You cannot even get rid of a certain degree of trouble which these things cause you. It will be enough if you are willing to bear with those defects which are unmistakable, refrain from condemning those which are doubtful, and not suffer yourself to be so afflicted by them as to cause a coolness of feeling between you.
Perfection is easily tolerant of the imperfections of others; it becomes all things to all men. We must not be surprised at the greatest defects in good souls, and must quietly let them alone until God gives the signal of gradual removal; otherwise we shall pull up the wheat with the tares. God leaves, in the most advanced souls, certain weaknesses entirely disproportioned to their eminent state. As workmen, in excavating the soil from a field, leave certain pillars of earth which indicate the original level of the surface, and serve to measure the amount of material removed--God, in the same way, leaves pillars of testimony to the extent of his work in the most pious souls.
Such persons must labor, each one in his degree, for his own correction, and you must labor to bear with their weaknesses. You know from experience the bitterness of the work of correction; strive then to find means to make it less bitter to others. You have not an eager zeal to correct, but a sensitiveness that easily shuts up your heart.
I pray you more than ever not to spare my faults. If you should think you see one, which is not really there, there is no harm done; if I find that your counsel wounds me, my sensitiveness demonstrates that you have discovered a sore spot; but if not, you will have done me an excellent kindness in exercising my humility, and accustoming me to reproof. I ought to be more lowly than others in proportion as I am higher in position, and God demands of me a more absolute death to everything. I need this simplicity, and I trust it will be the means of cementing rather than of weakening our attachment.
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Francois Fenelon (1651 - 1715)
He was inducted into the Acadmie Francaise in 1693 and named Archbishop of Cambrai in 1695. During his time as the educator and teacher of the Duke, Fenelon wrote several entertaining and educational works, including the extensive novel Les Aventures de Telemaque, fils d'Ulysse (The Adventures of Telemachus, son of Ulysses), which depicted the ideal of a wise king. When this novel began circulating anonymously among the court, having been fragmentarily published in 1699 without his knowledge, Louis XIV, who saw many criticisms of his absolutistic style of rule in Telemaque, stopped the printing and banned Fenelon from court. Fenelon then retreated to his bishopric in Cambrai, where he remained active writing theological and political treatises until his death on January 17, 1715.In Church history, Fenelon is known especially for his part in the Quietism debate with his earlier patron Bossuet. In his work Explication des maximes des Saints sur la vie interieure (Explanation of the Adages of the Saints on the Inner Life) in 1697, he defended Madame du Guyon, the main representative of Quietistic mysticism. He provided proof that her "heretical" teachings could also be seen in recognized saints. In 1697, Fenelon called on the pope for a decision in the Quietism debate. After long advisement, the Pope banned the Explication in 1699. Fenelon complied with the pope's decision immediately and allowed the remaining copies of his book to be destroyed.
Francois de Salignac de la Mothe-Fenelon, more commonly known as Francois Fenelon, was a French Roman Catholic theologian, poet and writer. He today is remembered mostly as one of the main advocates of quietism and as the author of The Adventures of Telemachus, a scabrous attack on the French monarchy, first published in 1699.
Francois Fenelon (specifically Francois de Salignac de la Motte-Fenelon) was born on August 6, 1651, at Fenelon Castle in Perigord. Fenelon studied at the seminary Saint-Sulpice in Paris, where he was ordained as a priest. Fenelon published his pedagogical work Traite de l'education des filles (Treatise on the Education of Girls) in 1681, which brought him much attention, not only in France, but abroad as well. At this time, he met Jacques Benigne Bossuet, Bishop of Meaux, who soon became his patron and through whose influence Fenelon was contracted by Louis XIV to carry out the re-conversion of the Hugenots in the provinces of Saintonge and Poitou in 1686 and was appointed in 1689 as educator of his grandson and potential successor, the Duc de Bourgogne. Because of this position, he gained much influence at the court.
He was inducted into the Academie Francaise in 1693 and named Archbishop of Cambrai in 1695. During his time as the educator and teacher of the Duke, Fenelon wrote several entertaining and educational works, including the extensive novel Les Aventures de Telemaque, fils d'Ulysse (The Adventures of Telemachus, son of Ulysses), which depicted the ideal of a wise king. When this novel began circulating anonymously among the court, having been fragmentarily published in 1699 without his knowledge, Louis XIV, who saw many criticisms of his absolutistic style of rule in Telemaque, stopped the printing and banned Fenelon from court. Fenelon then retreated to his bishopric in Cambrai, where he remained active writing theological and political treatises until his death on January 17, 1715.
In Church history, Fenelon is known especially for his part in the Quietism debate with his earlier patron Bossuet. In his work Explication des maximes des Saints sur la vie interieure (Explanation of the Adages of the Saints on the Inner Life) in 1697, he defended Madame du Guyon, the main representative of Quietistic mysticism. He provided proof that her "heretical" teachings could also be seen in recognized saints. In 1697, Fenelon called on the pope for a decision in the Quietism debate. After long advisement, the Pope banned the Explication in 1699. Fenelon complied with the pope's decision immediately and allowed the remaining copies of his book to be destroyed.