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 27th  (page 27)

 
     Self-love dies only when our body dies, so we must, while we live in this land of exile, continue to counterattack its assaults on our senses and its underhanded tactics.  It is enough if we firmly withstand, giving no willful or deliberate consent . . . When we feel within ourselves the first movements of self-love or of other passions, let us prostrate ourselves immediately before the heart of God and tell Him, in a spirit of confidence and humility, “Lord, have mercy on me because I am a very weak creature.”  Then let us tranquility rest in peace and put ourselves at God’s disposal.
 

(Letters 1675; O. XIX, pp. 272-273)

 
 
      On January 27th, 1612, Francis de Sales went to the Little House of the Gallery to speak with Sister Marie Aimee de Blonay, wo was received there tow days previously   He told her that he wanted to know all about her family, and what she had done before she entered religion. Having learned that God had supported and assisted her by means of the reading of the fourth chapter of the Gospel according to Saint Matthew, Francis showed his delight and said, “My dear daughter, up until now you have meditated upon the fourth chapter of this great evangelist, but now, with the grace of God, you have crushed your enemy, you have escaped form the stormy sea of the world, you have left your sip and abandoned your nets, and what is more important, you have also left your father.  So now you must begin to work on abandoning and offering yourself.  I would like you to meditate on the three chapters that follow, from which I have drawn the spirit and the maxims that I want to establish in our congregation.”  When the young woman said that she did not have a Bible to read, the saint graciously replied that he would send her one immediately.  As soon as he returned to his home he had the three chapters copied out and sent to her by his chaplain.
 

(A.S. I, p. 669)

 

 Praise is a slow poison. How many times has it destroyed virtue.