Mystical Word 3rd Sunday of Lent 2025
Readings for the Third Sunday of Lent Exodus 3:1-8a, 13-15 | 1 Corinthians 10:1-6, 10-12 | Luke 13:1-9
Jesus tells the people, “If you do not repent, you will all perish.” He is saying that if we do not let go of the self, or annihilate the self, we will only know misery. It is not a threat of divine punishment but a statement of consequences. Only in God do we find lasting happiness. An obscure French mystic knew this truth. His name is Francois Fenelon.
Francois Fenelon was born in Perigord, France in 1651. He became a priest, then a renowned preacher and spiritual director. In 1689 he was appointed tutor to King Louis XIV’s grandson. He then became archbishop of Cambrai. Decisively, he met Jeanne Guyon in 1688. He undertook, more deeply, the contemplative way of annihilation. Between 1697 and 1699, another bishop, Bossuet, waged a prolonged and bitter literary battle against Fénelon. The French king also attacked Fenelon because Fenelon opposed the king’s autocratic rule and thirst for war.
This ended when Pope Innocent XII issued a bull condemning twenty-three propositions in Fénelon’s book. The pope was reluctant to do this and remarked that “Fénelon erred by loving God too much!” Fénelon was stripped of his position at court and exiled to his diocese. But he reacted to his condemnation and exile revealed the strength of his character: without a trace of bitterness, Fénelon submitted meekly and set about serving the peasants of his diocese and deepening their spiritual lives. He died in 1715.
Fenelon found his happiness in God, not in the favor of the king or the wealth of the French court, much less the trappings of ecclesiastical power. He knew the way of self-annihilation. He knew that it happens in the prayer of contemplative silence. He also knew that this contemplative silence must expand into all parts of life.
Fenelon writes, “in all things turning from self to God…die…to self-consciousness and self-interest.” This happens as we pray all day long, and not just at specific times like the morning or before bed. Self-annihilation happens on the go, as we are attending to the chores and business of the day. Fenelon tells us that it happens as we return our minds and hearts to the presence of God all day long: “The sovereign remedy is the habit of dwelling continually in the presence of God.”
He advocates returning to the silence beyond thinking all as much as we can: “accustom yourself to make frequent brief acts of God’s presence through the day amid all your activities.” While he presumes we are setting aside some time every day to do nothing but contemplative silence, or the prayer of self-annihilation, he wants us to take this silence and self-annihilation into daily life.
He understands that we will forget about God and get focused on ourselves, but he does not teach us to repress the self: “A continual attempt to repress thoughts of self and self-interest is practically continual self-consciousness.” Instead, he says, “Return…quietly to God as soon as you are conscious of them, but do so without anxiety, scruples, or agitation.” Or, “you must try very often to renew the presence of God, even amid those occupations that are right and necessary, guarding against your self-will.” And, “lift up your heart to him whenever you become aware that outward things are leading you away or tending toward forgetfulness of God.” Or, simply, to “place yourself in the presence of God when you perceive that you are no longer there.”
We practice self-annihilation by being silent within or not thinking and resting in God in faith. We do this in specific periods of prayer and in small moments over the course of a day. Fenelon writes, “Small occasions…are unforeseen. They recur every moment and place us constantly in conflict with our pride, our laziness, our self-esteem, and our passions. They are calculated to subdue our wills thoroughly, and leave us no retreat. If we are faithful in them, the old nature will have no time to breathe. It must die to all its inclinations. It would please us much better to make some great sacrifices, however painful and violent, on the condition that we could then be free to follow our own pleasure and to keep our old habits in little things. However, it is only by faithfulness in small matters that the grace of true love is sustained and distinguished from the fleeting excitements of a purely human nature.”
Turn to God, renew your presence to God through your intention, your breath, and inner silence in the now when you notice your imagination running wild, creating illusory scenarios. Turn to God when you become aware of your selfish inclinations. Turn to God when you become aware of your faults or regret doing something. Turn to God when you feel your desire for God waning and all you can do is want to want God. Turn to God when you feel sad and like you are caught in despair. Turn to God when you start to ruminate over past negative experiences. Turn to God when you are reflecting on yourself. Turn to God when in small moments. This is the practice of Gospel self-annihilation leading to the freedom and joy of heaven.