Homilies

January 24, 2008
Memorial of St. Francis DeSales
1 Samuel 18:6-9, 19, 1-7; Mark 3:7-12
Fr. Marcellus Earl, OCSO

If, my brothers and sisters, you want to know something worthwhile about a saint it's a good idea to consult another saint who was close to that saint. We are very fortunate today to be able to do just that. St. Francis de Sales, the saint we are commemorating today had a very close friend, St. Jeanne Françoise de Chantal. How close were they? St. Francis de Sales describes spiritual friendship in these words:

What a wonderful thing it is to love on earth as we shall love in heaven, to cherish one another in this world as we shall for ever in the next . . . for two people sharing their devotion and their devotional aims become one in spirit.

He might very well have had his friendship with Madame de Chantal in mind when he penned those words, for Elizabeth Stoop writes of them:

Their friendship grew and deepened, he no longer thought of their souls as distinct but as 'notre âme', joined together in God's love and in his service.

St. Francis was born in 1567, studied law in Padua, became a priest and the bishop of Geneva. He did excellent work converting heretics in the Chablais and wrote many religious works. Two of the most important are, The Treatise on the Love of God and The Introduction to the Devout Life. He died in 1622 and is the patron saint of writers and is a doctor of the Church.

Now let's turn this homily over to Madame de Chantal. The following statements are from the testimony that she gave at the canonization process for Blessed Francis de Sales. Here's what she has to say about a trial he endured as a student in Paris:

On one occasion, when the Blessed wanted to give me strength to bear a difficulty of my own, he told me that when he was at college in Paris he was tried by a state of extreme mental anguish, firmly believing that he was doomed to go to hell and had no hope of salvation. This made him go cold with fear, especially when he thought how the damned have no power to love god or to see the Blessed Virgin; but however terrible his state of mind he held fast in the depth of his soul to his resolution to love and serve God with his whole strength while life lasted, and all the more lovingly and faithfully in this life as he thought he would have no chance of doing it in the next. This state of anguish lasted upwards of three weeks, or about six weeks, as far as I can remember, and it was so violent that he could hardly eat or sleep and went thing and as yellow as wax.

No doubt you would like to know the outcome of this trial. She goes on to say:

. . . Divine providence mercifully delivered him . . . He knelt down in front of an altar of our Lady where he found a little wooden board on which was mounted a copy of the prayer beginning: 'Remember, O most loving Virgin Mary, that no one ever turned to you and was left forsaken . . .'. He said it right through, rose from his knees and at that very moment felt entirely healed; his troubles, so it seemed to him, had fallen about his feet like a leper's scales.

Without faith it is impossible to please God so we can profit in our own faith by the example of the great faith St. Francis had. Madame de Chantal says this:

He told me that God had blessed him with much light and knowledge for understanding its mysteries and that he felt he really knew their meaning and purpose, as the Church teaches them to her children. No soul could have been more closely united to the faith of the Church than he was. I know that he loved holy Church tenderly and fervently, honoring and obeying its very least commandments.

In conclusion we shall hear what she says about his love and devotion:

He loved God in man and man in God, and said that he did not want to mean anything to people, or people to mean anything to him except in God. He was full of charity, loving souls truly and each in a different way, 'For this is how God chose to make my heart,' he said. 'I want to love my neighbor so much, so very much. Yet I feel that I love God only, and every soul for his sake; and everything that is not God or for God, is as nothing to me.'

St. Francis de Sales and St. Jeanne Françoise de Chantal, pray for us that we might one day come to be with you in glory. Amen.