Every Day with Saint Francis de Sales - February

[Hildegard of Bingen]

Every Day with Saint Francis de Sale

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


February 17th (page 48)

      Take for yourself the maxim of the apostle, “But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ; by whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world. [Galatians 6:14] Put Jesus crucified in your heart, and all the crosses of this world will seem to be roses. Those who have felt the punctures of the crown of thorns of the Savior Who is our Head will in no way feel any other wounds.

(Letters 1420; O. XVIII, p. 221)

      On February 18th, 1617, while Francis de Sales was preaching the Lenten sermons at Grenoble, the Protestant ministers got together their “big guns” to oppose the man of God. Some friends of the saint informed him of this, telling him that one of those ministers had a powerful voice with poison on his tongue. “Good,” the saint replied, “that is made to order for me. God will draw His glory from my confusion.” He was then told, “Do you really want to expose your sacred person to ridicule?” “ Jesus Christ exposed His own divine person,” he replied, “and was saturated with opprobrium. I hope, with the help of His grace, to be ready to suffer more insults than these gentlemen can heap on me. If God gives me this grace, we will have the joy of making several major conversions.” During the dispute the saint maintained his usual modest demeanor, letting that charlatan do all the talking without interrupting him, not even with one single word. But he vomited forth his poison without order or reason in such a way that all the listeners were indignant. Seeing this, the holy prelate broke his silence and refuted all the false propositions of the minister with so much fire and wisdom that the opponent remained confused. At every word, however, he interrupted this holy man, who immediately kept silent when his opponent wanted to speak and gently took up the argument again when his adversary stopped speaking. This made Councillor De Santerean say that everything in that man spoke to God, even his silence. Someone remarked to Francis that he gave too much time to that brash minister. He replied, “Oh, dear me! It is about all you can do on these occasions when there is no sense or reason in the debate. IT is good that we realize this about our opponents, and show that it is not our intention to humiliate or beat them but only to convince and convert them.”

(A.S. II, p. 427)