1/24/2018 - St Francis de Sales - Wednesday of the 3rd week of Ordinary Time - Mark 4:1-20

    Francis de Sales was born in Savoy region of Europe in 1567 to a wealthy family in the era in which Europe going through a lot of turmoil and division in the years after the Protestant Reformation. His family hoped he would become a lawyer, for which he studied in the university.  However, he felt called to serve God in the Church.  After his ordination, he was sent to be a priest in the region around Lake Geneva in Switzerland, which was a center of Protestant Calvinism, not the easiest place to serve as a Catholic pastor.  He traveled around the region on foot, living in poverty and often being threatened by the hostile population.  I thought of the parable we hear today, about the sower who went out to sow in different types of soil, thinking of the challenges that Francis de Sales faced in his preaching and his ministry.  With Sister Jane Frances de Chantal, he helped found the Sisters of the Visitation, a group of religious sisters who were to practice the virtues that Mary exemplified in her visit to her cousin Elizabeth: humility, charity, and piety. Francis de Sales had a strong sense of identity in his Catholic faith and in his priestly vocation.  He was named as Doctor of The Church and as the patron saint of educators, journalists, and writers.     
        Francis’ writings on holiness and spirituality have a great influence on our faith, even today. Here is one wonderful quote from him:  “It is not those who commit the least faults who are the most holy, but those who have the greatest courage, the greatest generosity, the greatest love, who make the boldest efforts to overcome themselves, and are not immediately apprehensive about tripping.” St Francis de Sales: pray for us.