St Francis de Sales | Hallows Day

Weeks of fear

When Francis was a student in Paris, 19 or 20 years old, he became terrified that God had decided he would not go to heaven. For weeks he could hardly eat or sleep, and he grew ill with worry.

One day he went into a church, knelt before a statue of Mary and prayed the Memorare: “Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary…” He told God that, whatever happened, he would love him. The fear lifted, and he never forgot how kind God is.

Source: Pope Benedict XVI, General Audience on St Francis de Sales, 2 March 2011; Pope Francis, Totum amoris est (2022); M. Hamon, Vie de saint François de Sales (1854), volume 1, in French, Book 1

Notes under the door

As a young priest, Francis volunteered to go to the Chablais, a region by Lake Geneva where most people had left the Catholic Church. Nobody wanted to listen. Doors were slammed in his face, and some people even tried to kill him.

So Francis wrote short leaflets explaining the faith and slipped them under people’s doors. Slowly, people began to read them, and then to listen. That’s why he is the patron saint of writers and journalists.

Source: Pope Francis, Totum amoris est (2022); M. Hamon, Vie de saint François de Sales (1854), volume 1, in French, Book 2; Pope Pius XI, Rerum omnium perturbationem (1923)

Martin’s signs

While preaching in the little town of La Roche in 1605, Francis met Martin, a man who had been deaf since birth and came begging at his door. People said Martin would be no use to anyone. Francis took him into his household, taught him about God himself using signs, and that Easter Martin made his First Communion.

That’s why Francis is the patron saint of deaf people.

Source: M. Hamon, Vie de saint François de Sales (1854), volume 1, in French, Book 4; M. Hamon, Vie de saint François de Sales (1854), volume 2, in French, Book 7

Holiness for everyone

Francis wrote a famous book, Introduction to the Devout Life, for a married woman who wanted to love God more in her busy, ordinary life.

He said that a bee takes honey from flowers without harming them, and in the same way loving God makes every kind of life better, not worse. Holiness looks different for a bishop, a soldier, a mother or a worker, but it is for everyone.

Source: St Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life, Part 1, chapter 3

When it was hard

Francis had a naturally hot temper. His friend Bishop Camus wrote that anger was one of the two things it cost him most to conquer, and that he fought it so hard and for so long that gentleness became what he was known for.

He also knew what it was like to be eaten up by worry. As a student he was so anxious he made himself ill. Later, as a priest, he spent years being ignored, mocked and rejected, and he kept going.

He learned to be gentle with other people, and gentle with himself. He taught that when we fail, we shouldn’t get angry with ourselves, but calmly say sorry and start again.

Source: Jean-Pierre Camus, The Spirit of St Francis de Sales

One important direction in which to exercise gentleness, is with respect to ourselves, never growing irritated with one’s self or one’s imperfections.

St Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life (source)

Try this

Next time you mess up, try Francis’s way: no shouting at yourself. Say sorry, take a breath, and start again gently.
Write a kind note to someone in your family and slip it under their door or their pillow.

A prayer

St Francis de Sales, you were gentle with everyone, even yourself. Help us to be patient and kind, and to find God in our ordinary day. Pray for us.

For grown-ups: more about St Francis de Sales

Francis (1567 to 1622) was born at the Château de Sales in Savoy, studied with the Jesuits in Paris and took a doctorate in law at Padua. Ordained in 1593, he spent four hard years on mission in the Chablais, and in 1602 became Bishop of Geneva, living in Annecy because Geneva itself was Calvinist.

With St Jane Frances de Chantal he founded the Order of the Visitation in 1610. His Introduction to the Devout Life (1609) and Treatise on the Love of God (1616) made him a Doctor of the Church in 1877, and Pius XI named him patron of writers in 1923. St John Bosco named his Salesians after him.