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 9th (page 69)

      Do no pay any attention to the kind of work you do, but rather to the honor that it brings to God, even though it may seem quite trivial. Desire only to do the Divine Will, following Divine Providence, which is disposition of Divine Wisdom. In a word, if your works are pleasing to God and recognized as such, that is all that matters. Work hard every day at increasing your purity of heart, which consists in appraising things and weighing them in the balance of God’s will.

(Letters 280; O, XIII, p. 53)

     Francis de Sales had a very special devotion to Saint Frances of Rome, honored by the Church on this day. The celebrated Monastery of the Oblates of Tor de’ Specchi, founded by that saint, was one of the holy places he visited with devotion on his two trips to Rome. He advised married couples to read her life, and when the occasion presented itself he did not miss the opportunity of praising her in his sermons. It was her humble and mortified life, by means of which this illustrious woman climbed to such heights of sanctity, that appealed to the tender piety of our saint. As can be seen from the first and oldest memoirs of the Order of the Visitation, Francis presented this saint as a model for his daughters and wanted to call them the Oblates of the Most Holy Virgin. But since the name of oblates was not then common in France – he did not want to use a new title – he gave up the idea, explaining in a note to the holy mother Chantal: “Yes, my daughter, without too much show we will change the title of oblates because it displeases so many people. However, we will never change the plan and eternal vow to be always the most humble servants of the mother of God. Renew this promise at Holy Communion, as I will do during my Holy Mass. Ah! . . . It is twelve years today since I had the grace of celebrating Mass in the monastery of this holy Roman widow, with an ardent desire to be devoted to her all my life. She is certainly our holy patron, and so she must be our model. She loved her little Baptist as you your Clese-Benigne, but she entrusted him entirely to the protection of the Divine Will, which made him a blessed son. I hope the same thing happens to my dearest mother.”

(A.S. III, p. 205)

The peace of God be ever in our hearts.