Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. Matthew 5:48
“The virtue of indifference as espoused by St Francis de Sales, is completely at odds with our modern understanding of indifference as being apathetic and uncaring.
Indeed, St Francis teaches that ‘the passions are part of our human nature and we become perfect not by ignoring or eradicating them but by bringing them under the dominion of the will and integrating them to our personality’. It is against this backdrop that we need to consider indifference as a choice to orient our will toward the love of God…
In a letter to St Jane Frances de Chantal, St Francis declares that when we enter the stage of holy indifference we do not, and need not, give up our human affections and feelings, but they are perfected.”
St Francis de Sales (1567-1622) as quoted by Eunan McDonnell in The Concept of Freedom in the Writings of St. Francis de Sales (New York: Peter Lang, 2009) 233.
I was studying God’s Word with my neighbor, Ken, on Wednesday. In our discussion he recounted a lesson one of his teachers taught him. He reminded me that the evil one has many tactics but they all have one purpose: to get our eyes off Christ. That thought stuck with me. With help from Francis de Sales, notice how it relates to generosity and the virtue of indifference.
The evil one entices us to become attached to things instead of Christ. The evil one tempts us to be overcome by feelings of fear or worry instead of trusting Christ. When we are indifferent to these distractions and focused on Christ we “orient our will toward the love of God…we do not, and need not, give up our human affections and feelings…they are perfected.”
God wants each of us to become “perfect” or mature. He wants the fruit of generosity to ripen on the branches of our lives as we are connected to the vine of Christ. When our hands and hearts abide in Christ, things no longer entice our hearts and circumstances cease to tempt our minds. Without holy indifference, generosity is impossible; with it, generosity is perfected!