Homily
for the Feast of
St.
Francis de Sales
Jan. 24,
2023
Collect
Eph 3:
8-12
John 15:
9-17
Christian
Brothers, St. Joseph Residence, N.R.
The Collect makes 2 points about Francis de Sales: he became all things to all people (echoing a line from St. Paul [1 Cor 9:22], as you know), and he set an example of gentle charity in the service of his neighbor. Indeed, he’s known as the gentleman saint—not because of what used to be called gentle birth, birth into nobility, but because of his characteristic gentleness, kindness, and patience—which aren’t always characteristics of those born to nobility.
St. Paul writes today of having
been given the grace to preach Christ’s riches to the Gentiles. Francis preached to Catholics and Calvinists,
to royalty and peasants, and he had a knack for touching all classes of people
in preaching and writing, a knack born of verbal facility, warm humanity, and
gentle charity. This universalism and
this approach gave birth to his most renowned writing, which many of you may
have read, the Introduction to the Devout Life. So he made himself all things to all people.
That contribution to Christian
spirituality was part of why Leo XIII declared him a doctor of the Church; in
his decree Leo cited what Benedict XVI called Francis’s “expansion of the call
to perfection, to holiness.” Leo wrote
that thru Francis true piety “shone its light everywhere and gained entrance to
the thrones of kings, the tents of generals, the courts of judges, custom
houses, workshops, and even the huts of herdsmen.” Benedict picks up on that: “Thus came into being the appeal to lay
people and the care for the consecration of temporal things and for the
sanctification of daily life on which the Second Vatican Council and the
spirituality of our time were to insist.”[1]
Francis lived out Jesus’ words
about remaining in his love, about being a friend of Jesus, about loving one
another (John 15:9-17). That, as you
know, was the topic of his other great contribution to Christian spirituality, his
Treatise on the Love of God, which expressed his own experience of God’s
goodness and his desire to share that experience.
I end with a prayer of Francis from
his youthful crisis of faith, quoted by Benedict: “Whatever happens, Lord, you who hold all
things in your hand and whose ways are justice and truth; whatever you have
ordained for me … you who are ever a just judge and merciful Father, I will
love you Lord…. I will love you here, O
my God, and I will always hope in your mercy and will always repeat your
praise…. O Lord Jesus, you will always
be my hope and my salvation in the land of the living.”[2]
No comments:
Post a Comment