Words of Wisdom from St. Francis De Sales

 

 All of us can attain to Christian virtue and holiness, no matter in what condition of life we live and no matter what our life work may be. 

Take care of your health, that it may serve you to serve God.

Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself. Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections but instantly set about remedying them -- every day begin the task anew. 

He who can preserve gentleness amid pains, and peace amid worry multitude of affairs, is almost perfect.

We do not very often come across opportunities for exercising strength, magnanimity, or magnificence; but gentleness, temperance, modesty, and humility, are graces which ought to colour everything we do. There may be virtues of a more exalted mould, but... these are the most continually called for in daily life.

The highest degree of meekness consists in seeing, serving, honoring, and treating amiably, on occasion, those who are not to our taste, and who show themselves unfriendly, ungrateful, and troublesome to us. 

 

Frequent not the company of immodest persons, especially if they be also impudent, as is generally the case; ...these corrupted souls and infected hearts scarcely speak to any, either of the same or a different sex, without causing them to fall in some degree from purity; they have poison in their eyes and in their breath, like basilisks. On the contrary, keep company with the chaste and virtuous; often meditate upon and read holy things; for the word of God is chaste, and makes those also chaste that delight in it. 

 

Truly it is a blessed thing to love on earth as we hope to love in Heaven, and to begin that friendship here which is to endure for ever there. 

"If in mental prayer we should do nothing else than continually banish distractions and temptations, the meditation is well made." 

Pride dies 20 minutes after death. 

Trouble that is easily recognized is half-cured. 

We can never attain to perfection while we have an affection for any imperfection.  

Chastity is the lily of virtues, and makes men almost equal to Angels. Everything is beautiful in accordance with its purity. Now the purity of man is chastity, which is called honesty, and the observance of it, honor and also integrity; and its contrary is called corruption; in short, it has this peculiar excellence above the other virtues, that it preserves both soul and body fair and unspotted. 

It is better to remain silent than to speak the truth ill-humoredly, and spoil an excellent dish by covering it with bad sauce.  

We may be excused for not always being bright, but we are not excused for not being gracious, yielding and considerate.  

Nothing is more like a wise man than a fool who holds his tongue.  

The truly patient man neither complains of his hard lot nor desires to be pitied by others. He speaks of his sufferings in a natural, true, and sincere way, without murmuring, complaining, or exaggerating them. 

And to say that the Church has failed--what else is it but to say that all our predecessors are damned. Yes, truly; for outside the Church there is no salvation, out of this Ark every one is lost."

 "As to decrees on doctrines of faith they are invariable; what is once true is so unto eternity..."

"The Councils... decide and define some article. If after all this another test has to be tried before their [the Council's] determination is received, will not another also be wanted? Who will not want to apply his test, and whenever will the matter be settled?... And why not a third to know if the second is faithful?--and then a fourth, to test the third? Everything must be done over again, and posterity will never trust antiquity but will go ever turning upside down the holiest articles of faith in the wheel of their understandings...what we say is that when a Council has applied this test, our brains have not now to revise but to believe."

"Thus we do not say that the Pope cannot err in his private opinions, as did John XXII; or be altogether a heretic, as perhaps Honorius was. Now when he [the Pope] is explicitly a heretic, he falls ipso facto from his dignity and out of the Church..." 

The declared enemies of God and His Church, heretics and schismatics, must be criticized as much as possible, as long as truth is not denied. It is a work of charity to shout: 'Here is the wolf!' when it enters the flock or anywhere else. 

"I will always repeat," says St. Francis de Sales, "that whoever preaches with love preaches sufficiently against heresy, although he may not utter a single word of controversy. During the thirty-three years that I have been in the ministry, I have always remarked that the practical sermons of a priest whose heart is filled with piety and zeal, are like so many burning coals heaped upon the heads of the enemies of our holy faith. Such sermons always edify and conciliate non-Catholics."

Introduction to the Devout Life (St. Francis of Sales) – pdf; or pdf here; or audiobook here, here or here

The Treatise on the Love of God (St. Francis de Sales) – pdf, kindle; or pdf here and here; or audiobook here

The Secret of Sanctity (St. Francis de Sales, Fr. J. Crasset) – pdf, text, epub, kindle format

The Interior Life (Fr. J. Tissot, St. Francis de Sales) – pdf, text, kindle format

Maxims and Counsels of St. Francis de Sales – pdf, text, epub, kindle format

"Work is the fundamental trait of the Salesian: The Salesian is a worker. Don Cagliero used to say: "He who does not work is not Salesian."