Saint Francis de Sales, saint and bishop of Geneva, is the founder of the Salesian family. Follow our article and get to know the sayings of St Francis de Sales and see how they apply to everyday life.
He was born on 21 August 1567 in Thorens-Glières, Savoy, and died on 28 December 1622 in Lyon, France. He was canonised in 1665 and his feast day is 24 January.
He was the Catholic Bishop of Geneva and was named a Doctor of the Church, as was St Augustine of Hippo, who was active in the struggle against Calvinism and co-founded the Order of Catholic Nuns.
He wrote the devotional classic Introduction to the Devout Life.
This book emphasised that spiritual perfection was possible for people engaged in the affairs of the world and not just, as many believed at the time, for the clergy.
As this was his most famous book, he originally wrote it himself in the form of letters, and it was an immediate success throughout Europe.
But many clerics rejected the idea that lay men and women could achieve holiness in the experience of their daily lives. In some cases they were broken by Francis’ encouragement of dancing and joking.
In this video you have the story of this saint called Francis de Sales:
Famous Quotes By Saint Francis de Sales
One of Francis de Sales’ sayings was that the love of God is like romantic love.
He said: “The thoughts of those who are moved by natural human love are almost entirely fixed on the beloved, their hearts are full of passion for him, and their mouths full of his praise.
“When he goes away, they express their feelings in letters, and he cannot pass a tree without carving the name of his beloved in its bark”.
His book Introduction to the Devout Life is a classic that many lay people use to be in the life of holiness.
In this video we leave some phrases of St. Francis de Sales:
“For those who love God can never cease to think of him, to long for him, to aspire to him and to speak of him. If they could, they would engrave the name of Jesus on the hearts of all humanity”.
For Francis de Sales the key to God’s love was prayer, because to pray is to talk to God.
Here are some other quotes by Francis de Sales that you might like:
“As you turn your eyes towards God in meditation, your whole soul will be filled with God.
- Begin all your prayers in the presence of God”.
- For busy people living in the world, he advised: “Gather together several times in the solitude of your own heart, even while engaging externally in discussions or transactions with others, and talk to God.
- The test of prayer is a person’s actions.
- “To be an angel in prayer and a beast in relationships with people is to limp on both legs”.
St. Francis de Sales believed that the worst sin was to judge someone or gossip about them. Even if we say we do it out of love, we are still doing it to make ourselves look better.
Watch this video to see what St. Francis de Sales thought about suffering:
We should be as kind and merciful to ourselves as we are to others.
As he grew older and sicker, another saying of Francis de Sales was: “I have to drive, but the harder I try, the slower I go”.
Other quotes from St Francis de Sales
-
Be patient with all things, but first of all with yourself. Never confuse your faults with your value as a human being.
- You are a completely valuable, creative and worthwhile person simply because you exist. And no amount of triumph or tribulation can change that.
- Fear is the greatest evil that can befall a soul, apart from sin.
- God commands you to pray, but He forbids you to worry.
- Love not too much, I beseech you, not even the virtues which we sometimes lose through our excessive zeal.
- Let us be what we are, and let us be so to honour the Master whose work of art we are.
- Let us be what God wants us to be, provided we are His, and not what we would like to be, contrary to His will.
- Even if we were the most perfect creatures under heaven, what good would that do us if we were not as God’s will would have us.
- Each of us needs half an hour of prayer every day, except when we are busy, then we need an hour.
Now we recommend that you watch this video on the thoughts of St Francis de Sales and the will that God wants in our lives:
St Francis de Sales wanted to be a hermit, like St Francis of Assisi, but he was more in demand than ever. The Pope needed him, then a princess, then Louis XIII. He said: “Now I really feel that I have only one foot on the ground…”.
He died on 28 December 1622 after giving his last advice to a nun: “Humility”.
Saint Francis de Sales was beatified on 8 January 1661 and canonised by Pope Alexander VII on 19 April 1665. His feast day is celebrated on 24 January.
His works were used by St John Bosco in his pastoral work.
In 1923, Pope Pius XI proclaimed him the patron saint of Catholic writers and the Catholic press because of the treatises and books he wrote.
He is also the patron saint of the deaf, journalists, adult education and the Sisters of St Joseph. He often appears with the Sacred Heart of Jesus and a crown of thorns.
In this last video you can see the relationship between St. Francis de Sales and St. John Bosco:
