St. Francis de Sales [15671622]
Doctor of the Church and patron saint of writers, St. Francis de Sales was remarkable not only for the sublime holiness of life which he achieved, but also for the wisdom with which he directed souls in the ways of sanctity."
The eldest of thirteen children, Francis de Sales was born in 1567 to a noble family in the French-speaking Duchy of Savoy (an area straddling present day eastern France and western Switzerland). He received a superb education in both France and Italy. Although intended by his father for a diplomatic career, St. Francis was ordained to the priesthood in the diocese of Geneva in 1593. Shortly thereafter, he was sent to the Chablais region of the Savoy on a mission to persuade those who had fallen under Calvinist influence to return to the practice of Catholicism. St. Francis spent four years laboring at this difficult task, during which he suffered many indignities. More than once he was thrown out of his lodgings, and had to sleep in the open air. Many times he celebrated Mass in empty churches or continued preaching while the congregation walked out. Nevertheless, St. Francis's unflagging poise and kindness in this mission led to its eventual success. By the turn of the century, the majority of the area's inhabitants had returned to the Catholic faith.
After his election as bishop of Geneva in 1602, St. Francis continued his apostolic efforts to win souls back to the Catholic Church. At the same time, St. Francis sought to build a broad community of devout persons within the Church who would live the life of Christian perfection in all their varied states and vocations.
It was St. Francis's absolute conviction that "holiness is perfectly possible in every state and condition of secular life," whether one is male or female, rich or poor, single or married. He expounded this view at length in his classic work The Introduction to the Devout Life. This conviction permeates the advice he gave to the many persons from all walks of life to whom he gave spiritual direction, both in person and in letters renowned for their spiritual wisdom, their psychological insight, their graciousness, and what one scholar has called their "inspired common sense."
Jane Frances Fremyot, Baroness de Chantal, is the most famous of those who came to St. Francis for spiritual direction. An aristocratic young widow with four children, she met St. Francis in 1604. In cooperation with her, St. Francis founded the Visitation of Holy Mary in Annecy in Savoy, a congregation for unmarried and widowed women who aspired to religious life but who were not sufficiently young, healthy, or free of family ties to enter one of the more austere women's orders of the day. The Visitation eventually developed into a cloistered religious order devoted to prayer and the cultivation of the "little virtues" St. Francis praised so highly. The order flourished during St. Francis's lifetime and afterward. St. Jane de Chantal was herself canonized in 1751.
After nearly thirty years of tireless labor on behalf of the Church and its members, St. Francis de Sales died of a cerebral hemorrhage in Lyons, France, on December 28, 1622. He had been traveling in the entourage of the king and queen of France at the time, but rather than stay in royal quarters, he lodged in the gardener's cottage on the grounds of the Visitation convent in that city. Fittingly for this apostle of the little virtues, he died in that modest cottage.
St. Francis de Sales was canonized in 1665. His feast day is celebrated on January 24.
