Feast of St. Francis de Sales

Traditional feast day: January 29th, followed in two days by one of his great devotees and the founder of the Salesian Order, St. John Bosco.

St Francis de Sales is another one of my favorite saints. (How many does that make now?) I love his gentle, nature-filled lessons for us. It's hard to believe, but I've read that he started out life with a choleric disposition, impatient and inclined toward anger. You could never tell it by his writings! That he could reform so completely, by the grace of God and much perserverence, gives me hope!

Here is an online reprint of St. Francis' Treatise on the Love of God .

Here is today's quote from the Oblates of St. Francis Daily St. Francis DeSales :

"To ensure that the saints pray and intercede for us, we must invoke them and ask their help The best way to celebrate their feasts is to realize the power they have with God for obtaining the graces of which we stand in need. Our Lord is so pleased when we profit from the intercession of the saints that, wishing to bestow on us some favor, He often inspires us to seek their mediation and invites us to ask them to pray for us. With full confidence we should seek their help and turn to them, especially on their feast days, without doubting for a moment that they will listen to us and will obtain for us what we are asking." (Sermons 51, O. X, pp. 136-137)

And here is my prayer to our patron of the day:

Dear St. Francis de Sales, patron of communicators, pray for all of us who navigate the modern world through the internet. Help us to use it as a source of edification and a means of communicating to others only what is pleasing to God.