Bending in the Wind

Monday of the 19^th Week in Ordinary Time (Memorial of St. Jane Frances de Chantal)

Matthew 17:22-27

In a desert out west, scientists built a biodome and planted some trees in it. At first, the trees grew normally; however, once they reached a certain height, they fell over and died. It turned out the scientists forgot one crucial element: wind. Bending in the wind puts stress on a tree’s root system, and it is that stress that causes the roots to grow deep and wide enough to support the weight and breadth of the tree.

In today’s gospel, our Lord stresses his disciples by telling them a second time about his impending passion, death, and resurrection. Although they didn’t understand what he meant, Matthew tells us they grieved deeply. As we know, there will be plenty more times when their faith will be challenged, and, while they will fail a few times, the stress of those challenges will ultimately produce a faith strong enough to withstand anything.

What was true of Christ’s disciples then has remained true throughout all of Christian history. We see it in the lives of the saints, one of whom we remember today: St. Jane Frances de Chantal. As a young woman, Jane was happily married, and had six children. She loved being a mother and taking charge of the household. Yet, it didn’t take long for the winds to blow. Her first three children died as infants; then, in the ninth year of her marriage, her husband died in an accident. This forced her to leave her home and move in with her disagreeable father-in-law and his even more disagreeable housekeeper. Although Jane kept a calm and even disposition, she prayed desperately for strength and for a good spiritual director.

Her prayers were answered when she met Francis de Sales, who was preaching at a parish near her childhood home. Impressed with her, Francis agreed to become her spiritual director. It didn’t take him long to see that Jane was by nature a strong, forceful, even hard person, but always hardest on herself. He helped her see how God was working in her, even in the tragic, stressful events of her life; that the sweetness and mildness she maintained toward others was the fruit of prayer, suffering, and patience. Being less rigid and demanding of herself wasn’t weakness, but, like bending in the wind, strengthening the roots of her faith.

Of course, St. Francis de Sales didn’t invent that idea; Jesus modeled it in the gospel. We see an example of it today. As the Son of God, he could have easily refused to pay a tax to enter His Father’s house. Why should he pay anything? For that matter, why should the Apostles (or any Christian), who would soon be permanently thrown out of the Temple? Yet, Jesus taught Peter that love meant going beyond the letter of the law to its heart; the Temple was a tribute to the Father’s glory, so, in his humility and love for the Father, His Son would gladly bend in the wind, keep silent, and pay the tax.

In our own humility and love for God, each of us struggles to eliminate sin from our lives. Today, let us ask ourselves how that struggle is going. Have we been too easy on ourselves and avoided the challenge, afraid of failure? This is the tree never blown by the wind; how can the roots of faith grow? Or, like St. Jane, have we been too hard on ourselves, failing to forgive ourselves for being less than perfect? This is the tree that doesn’t bend in the wind; it breaks. Rather, let us seek that virtuous middle ground through the prayer, endurance, and patience shown by St. Jane Frances, and ask God to help us, too, to bend in the winds of life, not only that we don’t break, but that our faith is strengthened for whatever challenges lie ahead.

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