† St. Francis de Sales † (January 24)

† Saint of the Day †

(January 24)

✠ St. Francis de Sales ✠

Bishop and Doctor of the Church:

Born: August 21, 1567
Château de Sales, Duchy of Savoy, Holy Roman Empire

Died: December 28, 1622 (Aged 55)
Lyons, Lyonnais, Kingdom of France

Beatified: January 8, 1661
Pope Alexander VII

Canonized: April 8, 1665
Pope Alexander VII

Feast: January 24

Patronage:
Baker, Oregon; Cincinnati, Ohio; Catholic press; Columbus, Ohio; Confessors; Deaf People; Educators; Upington, South Africa; Wilmington, Delaware; Writers; Journalists; The Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest; Salesians of Don Bosco

Francis de Sales was a Bishop of Geneva and is honored as a saint in the Catholic Church. He became noted for his deep faith and his gentle approach to the religious divisions in his land resulting from the Protestant Reformation. He is known also for his writings on the topic of spiritual direction and spiritual formation, particularly the Introduction to the Devout Life and the Treatise on the Love of God.

Francis was born on 21 August 1567 in the family castle of Sales, in Thorens in the duchy of upper Savoy. He was the firstborn child of Francis and Frances De Boisy. His father was forty-four, and his mother fifteen. There were twelve children born to the family, five of whom died soon after their birth.  Francis' studies were lengthy and were accomplished in three stages: college studies at la Roche and Annecy (where his priestly vocation was born); then at the Jesuit college in Paris; and finally at Padua, wherein 1591 he obtained his doctorate in civil and canon law. During these years he also studied theology.

He was a gifted young man: of brilliant intellect, persevering, purposeful, serene, affable, irresistibly charming, and above all, consumed with the love of God.

Francis the priest: pastor and missionary:
Our studious young man showed no interest in the prestigious betrothal and political office offered to him, and thus dismayed his father who had nursed visions of social grandeur for his firstborn.
He was appointed to the chair of the Annecy cathedral chapter and was ordained a priest on 18 December 1593. His early years of priesthood in the Calvinistic district of Chablais were largely colored, perforce, by extraordinary missionary controversy. He preached with courage, and his technique of patient dialogue and prayer was to prove a determining factor in the return of Thonon and Chablais to the Catholic faith.

His bishop sent him to Rome on diocesan business, and on 24 March 1599, he was appointed coadjutor bishop at the age of thirty-one. In 1602 he journeyed to Paris to organize the restoration of Catholic worship in the Gex area, part of his diocese and now reverted to French jurisdiction. Francis accomplished this task in nine months.

Francis, Prince-bishop of Geneva:
Francis was ordained bishop on 8 December 1602 and became the good shepherd amongst his people. He was tireless in visiting his 450 parishes; he organized the further formation of his clergy, proclaiming that learning was the eighth sacrament for a priest. He concerned himself with the reform of monasteries, and the catechesis of the young. He spent hours in the confessional, dialogued with the Calvinists, preached the Advent and Lenten homilies in many cities in Savoy and France, undertook spiritual direction both viva voce and in correspondence, took part in theological discussions, and with his friend Senator Antonio Favre founded the Florimontane Academy; and in the midst of this multitude of activities, he found time to publish in 1608 his Introduction to the devout Life (Philothea) and in 1616 his Treatise on the Love of God (Theotimus).

Francis, founder of the Visitation Congregation:
At Dijon in 1604, he met the Baroness Jane Frémyot de Chantal, aged thirty-two, and a widow with four children. Between these two saintly people there developed a strong spiritual friendship. In 1607 Francis suggested to her an important project: the founding of new kind of Order of Contemplative Sisters that would include the care of girls and widows, and be permitted to leave the convent to visit the sick and the poor. The Order was founded on 6 June 1610; but in 1618 the very strict canonical rulings of the day were insisted on by the Primate of France, Denis Marquemont, and all aspects of the external apostolate were suppressed.

Final journeys:
Duke Charles Emanuel I of Savoy sent Francis to Paris to press for the marriage of the hereditary prince Victor Amadeus with Christine of France, the sister of the young King Louis XIII. Francis spent some ten months in the Capital. Despite being assailed by a mess of intrigues he engaged in an intense missionary program: tireless preaching, meetings with Vincent de Paul, Mother Angelica Arnaud, and Richelieu. He also founded a convent of his Visitation nuns and declined to become the coadjutor of the Cardinal Archbishop.

In 1622 he was obliged to undertake another painful journey: to go to Avignon to the members of the royal family of France, and accompany them via Rodano to Lyons. He was a guest at the Bellecour convent of the Visitation Sisters at Lyons and there met the Reverend Mother Jane de Chantal for the last time. Francis died of a stroke on 28 December 1622.  His funeral was solemnized at Annecy on 24 January following, and his remains transferred to the Visitation Convent.

Francis was canonized on 19 April 1665 by Alexander VII; many years later in 1877, Pius IX declared him a Doctor of the Church, the first French-speaking member of that august assembly.  Such is the resumé of the life of our patron, a life full of extraordinary splendor and benevolence. In the following pages, we shall endeavor to present the principal features of this remarkable saint and seek to understand why Don Bosco was inspired to choose him as our model and protector.

Along the path of communion with God:
It would take too long to describe in these few pages how Francis would have the Christian seek to achieve true union with God - and the various forms and stages involved therein. Francis de Sales adapts the biblical and traditional symbolism of conjugal love and comments on the Canticle of Canticles. He rejects out of hand the belief that life is merely a mechanical habit and that a juridical approach is all that matters. Christian living is primarily a personal matter, a life of private and intimate relationships between the believer and his God. That is exactly what devotion (or the devout life) is. The wilted spirituality of so many Christians stems from the fact that they have been taught to adhere only to doctrine and morality, and not primarily to a mystique. We need to love the Supreme and Infinite Love, to dialogue with God in wonderment that is forever new.

The course mapped out by Francis is initially the way of love, respect, admiration for the divine perfections: Our Father who art in heaven... Then follows the love of benevolence, that is, the `love of goodness', the desire that hallowed be his name, that his kingdom will come. Finally, we learn to love, submit to and obey his laws, to desire that his will be done and to fulfill that will in our own lives. Then comes the perfection of love, the sign par excellence of its authenticity: to yield to God, to seek only his will, to submit to it and carry it out. This is the love that transforms. When we love what God loves, and will what he wills, we are then ready to declare - It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.

The heart that loves God loves him totally and always:
The mystique of Francis de Sales, as already mentioned, is essentially a mystique of Christian activity, of Christian living. The heart is the actual person making private and profound choices. If the heart chooses God and lives united to one, love will of necessity permeate one's whole being and enliven its manifold richness; and all one's practical living will be imbued with the supernatural.  In particular, Francis exalted human sensitivity. Left to its own resources it is in danger, but in expressing true love it becomes invaluable. Rev Mother de Chantal wrote, `He was not exempt from sentiment and the emotions of passion, nor was it his wish to be so'.9 Indeed he wrote of himself that he was most tender-hearted and that no one `loved more cordially, compassionately, affectionately' than he; indeed God had made him so.

He adds that charity does not arouse all the other virtues in the same way. It prefers some of them, in which it manifests itself more explicitly. Hence we have the procession of Gospel virtues about which he has written unforgettable pages, referring to them as ‘virtues that must enrich with their qualities the acts of all the other virtues'. We must prefer the virtues that fit in best with our personal situation and the duties of our state of life, `the better ones, not the most noticeable ones'11: humility, `awareness of our deficiencies and frailties'; and to this virtue, he dedicated four chapters of his Philothea,- gentleness, which is humility towards our neighbor and the flower of fraternal charity, and simplicity; and then the `important virtues' of obedience, chastity, and poverty. The love of God lifts the human heart into the realm of a living and active faith. In the diversity of situations and virtues, we need to guard this love carefully, to preserve it and perfect it, for it is love that guarantees the true value of our actions. This is the important principle of the uprightness of our aspirations, the purification of our intentions. Francis tells us that `we do not generate and achieve perfection by means of a multiplicity of efforts; rather what matters is the perfection and purity of the intention we have when we carry them out'.

Francis goes on to tell us: `We do not always have to cope with important things in our lives; but we always have the ability to carry out our small duties extraordinarily well - that is, with great love. Let us recall the holy man who, for the love of God, slakes the thirst of a poor and thirsty wayfarer with a glass of water. It is a very small thing that he does - or so it seems! But the intention, the kindness, the love that animates his action changes that simple glass of water into the water of life - and life eternal'. `To suffer a rebuke with two grams of love is far more meritorious than to suffer martyrdom with only one gram of love.'

The loving heart accepts death and life in Christ:
One further thought. It is easy to see that this teaching, though seemingly lofty and grand, does not in any way repudiate what the Gospel demands. On the contrary. We have only to recall the smiling, appealing, joyous demeanor of the Saints. They chose to lead a stricter life than others, and their very freedom showed clearly that they had assuredly mastered their human weaknesses. It is plain that we should have confidence in those who are holy and joyous since the love they preach leads to greater sacrifices. To love is to renounce oneself, and total renunciation of self demands total love.

It is worth noting that one of the books that St Francis de Sales held in special esteem was the Spiritual Combat by Lorenzo Scupoli. Francis knew that strife is part of life, but he renewed ‘religious spirit' by transferring austerity from external religious observance to interior religious observance. In his own words: ‘We must discipline our hearts, not our bodies'. Francis would have us eliminate all self-seeking. In a particular manner, we must cultivate fidelity to prayer, frequent confession, and make a constant effort to be vigilant with ourselves and our intentions. Then he surprises us even further: to achieve such courage it is sufficient to love and desire to love ever more and more.

The spiritual life is nourished by fixing our eyes on him who loves us, on Jesus crucified. The hallowed humanism of Francis de Sales is fundamentally a Christ-centered humanism, with Jesus the Man-God in our sights, the perfect man and the true God, an aspect that the French school was to emphasize so enthusiastically. Francis shared St Bonaventure's thinking on the reason for the Incarnation: God sent his Son not only to expiate sin, but first of all to possess a creature who could be totally loved, and from whom he could receive love in its totality. Francis maintained that God created angels and humans `as though to keep company with his own Son', creation's first-born, with the basic task of loving and praising the Father of heaven.

The whole devout life draws its inspiration from a deep personal love for Jesus Christ. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. Francis often repeated this expression of love and commented on it at length in his writings and discourses. He maintained that we should not only contemplate Jesus as the perfect model and strive to resemble him in an external manner; for more than a model, Jesus is our living principle and origin.

Christianity is the act par excellence of putting on Christ 18 through the grace of the Holy Spirit. And if the totality of man is his heart created for God, then the totality of Jesus Christ is his pierced Heart from which issues the blood of our redemption and the living water of life eternal. We need not marvel, then, that the great devotion to the Heart of Jesus was renewed in the Church in a monastery of one of the Daughters of St Francis de Sales at Paray-le-Monial, St Margaret Mary Alacoque. The founder of her Congregation had prepared the ground.