Every Day with Saint Francis de Sales - February

[Hildegard of Bingen]

Every Day with Saint Francis de Sales

Teachings and Examples from the Life of the Saint by Salesiana Publishers


February 11th (page 42)

       The sacred spouse in the Canticle of Canticles says that His bride has ravished His heart with one of her eyes and one of her tresses. [cf. Sg 4:9] Of all the outer parts of the human body, none is nobler in structure or activity than the eye and none of less value than the hair. Hence the sacred Spouse implies that He is pleased to accept the great deeds of devout persons, but that their least and lowest deeds are also acceptable to Him, and that to serve Him as He wishes we must take great care to serve Him well both in great, lofty matters and in small, unimportant things. With love we can capture His heart by the one just as well as by the other.

(INT. Part III, Ch. 35; O. III, p. 254)

        On February 11th, 1607, on the indulgence of the Franciscan Tertiaries to which he belonged, our saint preached at Annecy in the Church of Saint Francis of Assisi. The best part of the admirable sermon was these two words, vinculum charitatis. Referring to the cord of Saint Francis, he pictured Christ as bound, Saint Peter in chains, Saint Paul bound for the love of Christ; and he gave similar examples of many other saints. Then he went on to speak of the triple cord of the world, of ourselves and of Christ, noting that we would never be free of our chains while we lived. This will only happen in eternity, when the liberty of the children of God will be complete.

(A.S. II, p. 297)



I would prefer to do this; I would prefer to do that; I would be better off here or there!
This is a temptation. Let God dispose of us as He wills. He knows better than we do what is best for us.