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 16th (page 16)

 
     It is a very fine thing to feel ashamed of oneself when one realizes one’s own imperfections and misery, but his feeling must not drag on lest one lose heart.  It is necessary to raise the heart to God with a holy confidence, founded not in our strength but in God.  We indeed change, but God never does; He always remains equally good and merciful toward us, whether we are weak and imperfect or perfect and strong.  I always say that our misery is the throne of God’s mercy, and so we must realize that the greater our misery, the greater should be our confidence in Him.
 

(Spiritual Discourses II; O. VI, p. 22)

 
 
    On January 16th, 1618, Francis de Sales received, with remarkable calm, a defamatory libel that a lawyer had written against him and his Daughters of the Visitation; it was so insulting that even the most indifferent were moved.  The prelate knew the spirit and the character of that man, who had continued to persecute him for three or four years, but he would allow no one to take any action against him, saying to those who wanted to revenge these attacks, “I have committed this man into God’s hands, so no one must dare to touch him.  I invoke he divine mercy for him every day. . .”
 

(A.S. I, p. 385)

 
 
 

Never pronounce this person to be holier than that one.  Appearances deceive.  It is quite possible that the person who is holiest in God’s eyes is not so judged by the world.