Blessed Francis did not approve of controversial sermons,[1] "The Christian
pulpit," he used to say, "is a place for improving of morals, not for
wrangling about them, for instructing the faithful in the truth of their
belief, rather than for convincing of their error those who have separated
themselves from the Church. An experience of thirty years in the work of
evangelising makes me speak thus. We made some trial of the controversial
method, when God through us led back the Chablais to the Catholic Faith,
but when I attempted to throw my treating of controversial subjects in the
pulpit into the form of a discussion, it was never successful. In place
of reclaiming our separated brethren, this method scares them away; when
they see that we are of set purpose attacking them, they instantly put
themselves on their guard; when we bring the lamp too close to their eyes,
they start back from the light. Nor have I ever observed that any of my
fellow labourers in this work of the Lord were more successful in following
out this plan, of fencing, as I may more justly call it, even though
they engaged in it with the utmost enthusiasm, and in a place where the
congregation all sang hymns together, and each one in his turn acted the
preacher, each saying exactly what he liked, and no one taking any kind of
official lead among them.
"But, in truth, this fencing was what St. Paul calls beating the air.[2] I
do not mean that we must not prove Catholic truths, and refute the contrary
errors; for the weapons of the spiritual armoury and of the Word of God are
powerful to destroy all false teaching which rears itself up against the
truth, and to condemn disobedience to God; but we must not slash with our
words as desperate fencers do, but rather manage them dexterously, as does
a surgeon when using his lancet--he probes skilfully, so as to wound the
patient as little as possible."
And, indeed, Blessed Francis' way of dealing with this branch of theology,
bristling with thorns as it does at every point, was so sweet and pleasant
as to make it, as it were, blossom into roses. I could relate many
instances of the success of his preaching, without employing controversy,
in bringing back wanderers from the fold, equally with other sinners, into
the Church.
He accomplished this by simply stating great truths, and bringing them home
to his hearers. One of the most remarkable instances, perhaps, is that of
the Protestant lady, who hearing him preach on the Last Judgment at Paris
in the year 1619, having been attracted more by curiosity than by any good
motive to listen to the sermon, there received that first flash of light
which afterwards guided her into the bosom of the true Church, into which
later she was followed by all the members of her noble family, one that
has since given us many celebrated divines and preachers. This incident,
however, with many more of the same kind, is fully related in the life of
our Blessed Father. So successful was he with Protestants that Cardinal
du Perron used to say that if it were only a question of confounding the
heretics, he thought he had found out the secret, but to convert them he
felt obliged to send for the Bishop of Geneva.
[Footnote 1: Note.--It is more correct to say that St. Francis preferred
moral sermons to controversy.]
[Footnote 2: 1 Cor. ix. 26.]