Every Day with Saint Francis de Sales - January

[Hildegard of Bingen]

Every Day with Saint Francis de Sales

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

 

January 9th (page 9)

 
     All that we do must be motivated by love and not force.  We must love to obey rather than fear to disobey.  I leave you the spirit of liberty, not the liberty that excludes obedience, because this would be a liberty that excludes obedience, because this would be a liberty of the flesh, but the true spirit of liberty which includes obedience.  When you have to omit your practices of piety for a just and charitable reason, I want you to make use of this occastion as a kind of obedience; then love will compensate for the spiritual exercises you have missed.
 

(Letters 234; O. XII, p. 359)

 
 
     On January 9th, 1603, Francis de Sales put together a booklet entitled, Twenty-five Articles of Instruction for Confessors, a most useful work and one that has been translated into many languages and printed in various countries.
 
     In the process of the canonization of this saint, priests and religious of Annecy declared under oath that he charitable prelate instructed them to send to his confessional the poorest and most miserable, so that he could get to know them well and so help them.  He also instructed them to send him anyone afflicted with disgusting and evil-smelling diseases; these had more need of consolation and encouragement, since, as a rule, they were the more abandoned.
 

(A.S. I, p. 199)

 
 
     Be grateful for trials and tribulations, as they force us to have recourse to the heavenly Consoler!  When all is going well, we forget God; only in adversity to we seek Him for comfort.