Saint Francis de Sales, Bishop and Doctor of the Church

(Feast day: January 24)

Francis de Sales was born in Savoy in 1567. He studied with the Jesuits in Paris and then went to Padua, where he earned a doctorate in civil and canon law. He was ordained a priest in December 1593 and appointed provost of the cathedral chapter of Geneva. He immediately devoted himself to evangelizing the Calvinists and was remarkably successful, so he was appointed coadjutor to the Bishop of Geneva.
From his earliest years Francis was strongly drawn to the things of God, and the various events of his life were signs that his call to the priesthood came directly from God. He worked hard for Catholic reform in his homeland. Chosen as Bishop of Geneva, he was an active shepherd to the clergy and the faithful, teaching them through his deeds and his many writings. He died peacefully in Lyon, France, on December 28, 1622, and his body still rests in Annecy today. He has been called “the father of modern spirituality”.

Some of his best-known sayings

“There are certain things that many people consider virtues, and which are not so at all… I mean raptures, ecstasies, insensibilities, deifying unions, elevations, transformations and other such perfections discussed in certain books, which promise to raise the soul to purely intellectual contemplation, to the essential application of the mind and to the supereminent life… These perfections are not virtues, but rather rewards that God gives for virtues, or samples of the delights of the life to come… So we must not aspire to such graces, since they are not at all necessary for loving and serving God as we should, which must be our only aim.”

“I know of no Christian perfection other than loving God with all our heart and our neighbour as ourselves; every other perfection is a false perfection.”