Every Day with Saint Francis de Sales - March

[Hildegard of Bingen]

Every Day with Saint Francis de Sales


Teachings and Examples from the Life of the Saint by Salesiana Publishers


March 18th (page 78)

     Lent is the autumn of the spiritual life during which we gather fruit to keep us going for the rest of the year. Enrich yourselves with these treasures, which nobody can take away from you and which cannot be destroyed. I am accustomed to say that we will not spend Lent well unless we are determined to make the most of it. Let us, therefore, spend this Lent as if it were our last, and we will make it well. Listen to the sermons, because holy words are pearls; they are ships of infinite mercy – the true ocean of the East.

(Letters 329; O. XIII, p. 144)

     Francis de Sales had such a great devotion to Saint Joseph that he fasted on bread and water on the vigil of his feast. He desired that this great saint should be the protector of the entire Order of the Visitation and the particular patron of the first convent of Annecy, even directing the religious to make this feast the most solemn of the year. Once, to console the holy foundress, he wrote her these lines full of gentleness: “I beg that this great saint, who so often caressed. May he help you come closer to God, filling you with an abundance of peace.”

(A.S. III, p. 446)

There is no saint who has not walked the path of alliction.

This thought consoles us when we are asked to suffer.