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 31st (page 31)

 
     What a great mystery the human spirit is!  Religious would like to sing the song of the bishops, and married people that of religious, “so as to serve God better,” they say.  You fool yourself, my dear friend.  You should not say you want to do this to love and serve God better, but to serve your self-satisfaction better.  It is your own self-satisfaction that you love, far more than God’s satisfaction!  The will of God, for example, can be found in sickness and as a general rule even better than in good health.  If we prefer good health, please do not let us say we do so because we want to serve God better.
 

(T.L.G. Book 3, Ch. 10; O. V, p. 140)

 

 
     This last day of the month of January is the feast of Satin John Bosco, founder of the Society of Francis de Sales (Salesians) and patron of youth.
 
      Our thought today is taken from the early life of Francis de Sales.  In 1623, Francis’s nurse stated that even in his childhood he was a great friend of the poor; that he loved to go with his mother to visit them and play with them.  He was sincere in his speech and was never known to have told a lie.  He often restored peace among his brothers and small companions, and frequently accepted a punishment which he had not deserved.  She also gave other examples of his building holiness that she had noted in him from his birth until the age of seven.
 

(A.S. I, p. 780)

 

 
This is not to say that at this age little Francis was free from the defects and common faults of other youngsters, but the wise firmness of his parents in correcting him, and his own frankness in sincerely accusing himself of his faults, led to a growing improvement in his conduct.  Among many incidents this one can be mentioned.  He was forbidden to mix with the servants or to go into the places where they were working.  One day, passing by the kitchen, Francis saw the cook taking some cakes out of the oven.  He could not resist the temptation to taste one, so he went into the kitchen and asked for one.  A very hot cake was place in his hand! “Greed was stronger than the pain I felt,” he was to say later.  “I preferred to suffer rather than throw it away.”
 

(Hamon, Vol. 1, p. 12)

 
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