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Francois Fenelon
François de Salignac de La Mothe-Fénelon (1651 - 1715). French Catholic archbishop, theologian, and author born in Sainte-Mondane, Périgord, to noble but impoverished parents. Educated by tutors in Greek and Latin classics, he studied at the University of Cahors and Saint-Sulpice seminary in Paris, earning a theology doctorate in 1677. Ordained a priest in 1675, he directed Nouvelles Catholiques (1679-1685), educating young Huguenot converts, and preached in Saintonge (1685-1688) to persuade Protestants after the Edict of Nantes’ revocation, favoring persuasion over force. Named tutor to Louis XIV’s grandson, the Duc de Bourgogne, in 1689, he wrote Les Aventures de Télémaque (1699), a critique of absolutism that led to his banishment from court. Elected to the French Academy in 1693 and made Archbishop of Cambrai in 1695, he authored over 30 works, including Traité de l’éducation des filles (1687) and Explication des maximes des saints (1697), defending Quietist spirituality, which sparked conflict with Bishop Bossuet and papal condemnation in 1699. Unmarried, Fénelon lived ascetically, focusing on pastoral care in Cambrai. His words, “True prayer is only another name for the love of God,” reflect his mystical bent. His writings, translated into 60 languages, influenced Rousseau, Jefferson, and modern education, blending faith with humane governance. Despite controversies, his eloquent sermons and letters endure in Catholic and literary circles.
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Francois Fenelon preaches about the limits of our grace being the same as our temptation, emphasizing God's faithfulness in not allowing us to be tempted beyond what we can bear. He encourages trust in God's sovereignty in proportioning suffering to the patience bestowed by Him, likening it to the ebb and flow of the ocean where God sets the boundary for trials. Fenelon highlights the tendency for individuals to feel overwhelmed by future trials and the grace prepared to meet them, but reassures that God is always in control, ensuring that the waves of life will not engulf us beyond what we can handle.
The Limits of Our Grace Are Those of Our Temptation.
LETTER XXXVII. The limits of our grace are those of our temptation. I sympathize sincerely with the sufferings of your dear sick one, and with the pain of those whom God has placed about her to help her bear the cross. Let her not distrust God, and He will proportion her suffering to the patience which He will bestow. No one can do this but He who made all hearts, and whose office it is to renew them by his grace. The man in whom He operates, knows nothing of the proper proportions; and, seeing the extent, neither of his future trials, nor of the grace prepared to meet them, he is tempted to discouragement and despair. Like a man who had never seen the ocean, he stands, at the coming in of the tide, between the water and an impassable wall of rock, and thinks he perceives the terrible certainty that the approaching waves must surely engulf him; he does not see that he stands within the point, at which God, with unerring finger, has drawn their boundry-line, and beyond which they shall not pass. God proves the righteous as with the ocean; he stirs it up, and makes its great billows seem to threaten our destruction, but He is always at hand to say, thus far shalt thou go and no farther. "God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able." (1 Cor. x. 13.)
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François de Salignac de La Mothe-Fénelon (1651 - 1715). French Catholic archbishop, theologian, and author born in Sainte-Mondane, Périgord, to noble but impoverished parents. Educated by tutors in Greek and Latin classics, he studied at the University of Cahors and Saint-Sulpice seminary in Paris, earning a theology doctorate in 1677. Ordained a priest in 1675, he directed Nouvelles Catholiques (1679-1685), educating young Huguenot converts, and preached in Saintonge (1685-1688) to persuade Protestants after the Edict of Nantes’ revocation, favoring persuasion over force. Named tutor to Louis XIV’s grandson, the Duc de Bourgogne, in 1689, he wrote Les Aventures de Télémaque (1699), a critique of absolutism that led to his banishment from court. Elected to the French Academy in 1693 and made Archbishop of Cambrai in 1695, he authored over 30 works, including Traité de l’éducation des filles (1687) and Explication des maximes des saints (1697), defending Quietist spirituality, which sparked conflict with Bishop Bossuet and papal condemnation in 1699. Unmarried, Fénelon lived ascetically, focusing on pastoral care in Cambrai. His words, “True prayer is only another name for the love of God,” reflect his mystical bent. His writings, translated into 60 languages, influenced Rousseau, Jefferson, and modern education, blending faith with humane governance. Despite controversies, his eloquent sermons and letters endure in Catholic and literary circles.