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 30th (page 30)

 
     Keep this maxim well in mind:  God is our Father, because if He were not, Jesus would not have commanded us to say, “Our Father . . .”  What have you to fear if you are children of such a Father, without whose Providence not even one hair of our head would fall?  Is it not extraordinary that, being children of such a Father, we have or could have any other preoccupation than that of loving Him and serving Him?
 

(Letters 1420; O. XVIII, p. 210)

 

 
     On January 30th, 1606, Francis de Sales said farewell to his friends at Annecy and went to preach the Lenten sermons at Chambery.  He prepared himself for this task by a few days’ retreat, as we see from a letter to Mother Chantal in which he says, “Today I say my farewells, because I must leave tomorrow at dawn for Chambery, where the father rector of the Jesuits awaits me to be my host for these five or six days.  I have put these few days aside in order to give a rest to my soul, which has been preoccupied with so much business.  There, my dear daughters, I want carefully to review the condition of my soul and put all the affections of my heart in place, relying on the help of that good father who so loves my person and my spiritual welfare.”
 

(A.S. I, p. 741)

 

 

When you have hurt somebody, repair the damage as soon as possible by some act of kindness toward that person.