Jan. 24th - St. Francis de Sales

 

Today, we celebrate the memorial of Francis de Sales, bishop and doctor of the Church, who was born in 1567. One of his greatest virtues was patience.

For example, one day Francis had a bad idea -- at least that's what everyone else thought. This was during the time of the Protestant reformation and just over the mountains from where Francis lived in Switzerland it was Calvinist territory. Francis decided he would lead an expedition to convert the 60,000 Calvinists back to Catholicism. For three years, he trudged through the countryside, had doors slammed in his face and rocks thrown at him. In the bitter winters, his feet froze so badly they bled as he tramped through the snow. He slept in haylofts if he could, and once he slept in a tree to avoid wolves. He tied himself to a branch to keep from falling out and was so frozen the next morning he had to be cut down. And after three years, his cousin had left him alone because he didn’t make a single convert. Francis' unusual patience kept him working. No one would listen to him, no one would even open their door to him. So Francis found a way to get under the door. He wrote out his sermons, copied them by hand, and slipped them under the doors. This is the first record we have of religious tracts being used to communicate with people. Adults wouldn't come to him out of fear. So Francis went to the children. When the parents saw how kind he was as he played with the children, they began to talk to him. By the time, Francis left to go home he had converted 40,000 people back to Catholicism. In 1602 he was made bishop of the diocese of Geneva, in Calvinist territory.

It was in 1604, Francis saw a widow listening closely to his sermon – who was a woman he had seen already in a dream. Jane de Chantal wanted him to take over her spiritual direction, but, not surprisingly, Francis wanted to wait. "I had to know fully what God himself wanted. I had to be sure that everything in this should be done as though his hand had done it."

Three years after working with Jane, he finally made up his mind to form a new religious order. But where would they get a convent for their contemplative Visitation nuns? A man came to Francis without knowing of his plans and told him he was thinking of donating a place for use by pious women. In his typical way of not pushing God, Francis said nothing. When the man brought it up again, Francis still kept quiet, telling Jane, "God will be with us if he approves." Finally the man offered Francis the convent.

Francis believed the first duty of a bishop was spiritual direction. At that time, the way of holiness was only for monks and nuns -- not for ordinary people. Francis changed all that by giving spiritual direction to lay people living ordinary lives in the world. But he had proven with his own life that people could grow in holiness while involved in a very active occupation.

His most famous book, INTRODUCTION TO THE DEVOUT LIFE, was written for these ordinary people in 1608. Written originally as letters, it became an instant success all over Europe -- however some preachers tore it up because he tolerated dancing and jokes!

He died on December 28, 1622, after giving a nun his last word of advice: "Humility." He is patron saint of journalists because of the tracts and books he wrote. Today, if we struggle with patience, let us ask St. Francis to help us to be more patient and let us ask him for the gift of zeal to evangelize.