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 3rd (page 63)

    We must accommodate our heart to the condition of life in which we are, because life goes quickly and we are mortal, and death follows no set rules. It chooses here and there, without any pattern of selection and without method, taking the good and the bad, the young and the old. Happy are those who live in continual, vigilant watch!

(Letters 132; O. XVIII, p. 25)

    On March 3rd, 1604, Francis de Sales began preaching the Lenten sermons at Dijon. He went there, not simply because he had received many invitations to do so, but also in the interests of the diocese, a part of which depended on the parliament of Bourgogne. The saint outlined the reasons for this trip in a letter written to Pope Paul V; other motives had been suggested, and he was being gravely calumniated. Referring to this, he said later, “Our Congregation of the Visitation is the fruit of our Lenten sermons at Dijon. On that trip I was not able to view matters in their natural light. I foresaw another success so advantageous for souls that I preferred to expose myself to public opinion and trust in the goodwill of the well-disposed, rather than try to sidestep the calumny of the embittered. I hope that the future will vindicate the past, so that my course of action will ultimately be seen in proper perspective.”

(A.S. III, p. 54)

When you are blamed for something for which you are not responsible, speak

Up calmly in your own defense. If this is not successful, do not try to do anything

More, but be satisfied with recourse to humility and silence.