Feast day: January 24

St. Francis de Sales

Bishop & Doctor of the Church · 1567–1622

Patron of Writers, journalists, the deaf

Bishop of Geneva who won back tens of thousands to the faith with patience and pamphlets, and taught that holiness is for ordinary people in ordinary life.

Francis de Sales was born in 1567 to a noble family of Savoy and groomed for a brilliant career in the world. He studied at Paris and then law at Padua, taking his doctorate in 1592, and was on the point of being made a senator when he announced, against his father's plans and a marriage already arranged for him, that he intended to be a priest.

Ordained and made provost of Geneva, he volunteered for the hardest mission imaginable: to win back the Chablais region, which had gone over entirely to Calvinism. Threatened, often alone, and at first ignored, he spent years going from house to house and, when doors were shut to him, writing out his arguments on leaflets and slipping them under the doors — an early use of the printed tract that helped bring thousands back to the Catholic faith. His method throughout was gentleness; 'more flies are caught with a spoonful of honey,' he liked to say, 'than with a barrel of vinegar.'

Made bishop of Geneva in 1602 — though he governed from Annecy, since the city itself remained Calvinist — he became one of the most sought-after spiritual directors of his age. His books, the 'Introduction to the Devout Life' and the 'Treatise on the Love of God,' taught ordinary lay people, not only monks and nuns, that holiness was meant for them in the middle of their everyday duties — a revolutionary idea, beautifully expressed.

With St. Jane Frances de Chantal he founded the Visitation order for women whose health or circumstances barred them from the harsher convents. He died at Lyon in 1622. Beatified in 1661 and canonized in 1665, he was declared a Doctor of the Church in 1877, and for his use of the printed word he is honored today as the patron of writers and journalists.

When Calvinists wouldn't let him preach, he slipped essays under their doors — making him the patron saint of journalists.

“Have patience with all things, but first of all with yourself.”
— St. Francis de Sales

Image: Benjamin Gavaudo (Public domain), via Wikimedia Commons.

Source: newadvent.org/cathen/06220a.htm