FRANCESCO DI SALES, SANTO

FRANCESCO di SALES, Saint. – Bishop of Geneva, Doctor of the Church, born 23 Aug. 1567 at Thorens (ancient duchy of Savoy), died at Lyons on 28 Dec. 1622.

I. LIFE

Eldest son of François de Sales, lord of Boisy, and of Françoise de Sionnaz, both belonging to the ancient nobility of Savoy, he received his first education at home from a priest tutor, and then at the nearby colleges of La Roche (1571) and Annecy (1575). Although destined by his father for a legal career, at the age of eleven, at his own request, he received the clerical tonsure. In 1582 he went to Paris to continue his studies, attending courses in rhetoric and philosophy at the Jesuit College of Clermont. By personal inclination, he also devoted himself to theological studies. During the last years of his stay in Paris, between 1585 and 1588, he underwent a long spiritual trial, arising from intense reflection on Predestination. Reduced to extreme anguish, even despairing of his eternal salvation, he was delivered by adhering to Molinist doctrine.

In the autumn of 1588 he left Paris and, after a brief stay with his family, at the beginning of 1589 he went to Padua to study law at the university, especially under the celebrated Guido Pancrolli, from whom he finally received the doctoral cap in a public ceremony (5 Sept. 1592). During this period he continued his beloved sacred studies and advanced in the ascetical life under the guidance of the Jesuit Antonio Possevino. On his return home he was appointed advocate to the Senate of Chambery.

But F., resolved to embrace the ecclesiastical state, when, through the solicitude of others, he was given the provostship of the Chapter of Annecy, he firmly took that path, overcoming paternal opposition. On 12 June 1593, at Annecy, he received the subdiaconate, and on 18 Dec. following the diaconate and priesthood. After a few months, he himself offered his services to his bishop, Monsignor Claudio de Granier (of Geneva but then residing at Annecy), for an apostolic mission urged by the Duke of Savoy, Charles Emmanuel I: to bring back to the Catholic faith the Chablais, a country of 30,000 inhabitants that had gone over to Calvinism several decades earlier. In September 1594, F. began to traverse it, preaching and instructing; but for a long time he found almost no hearers, so that he had to entrust his words to the diffusion of fly-sheets. Remaining alone during the first three years of the mission, despite the apparent indifference of the Duke—whom he vainly visited in Turin in October 1596—he persevered firmly in his work, despite the extreme scarcity of results, the insistent calls of his family, and repeated criminal attempts on his person.

He also had to conduct long negotiations to secure the invitation of other missionaries into the country, to ensure his maintenance from the revenues of ecclesiastical goods held by the Knights of SS. Maurice and Lazarus. But, in the end, after some isolated conversions of noblemen and important persons, the return of the Chablais to Catholicism began to spread rapidly, also because of the changed political conditions following the peace between Savoy and France (1598). In a solemn ceremony celebrated at Thonon in the presence of a papal legate and the Duke of Savoy, there were several thousand public abjurations (the number of 25,000 converts was given by the Saint himself in a report of 1603 to the Pope).

For the sake of peace, F. proposed the marriage of Charles with Anne of Brittany (thus uniting that fair province to France).

The characteristic virtues of St. F. of S. were humility and charity; extraordinary was his mortification: he never ate meat or dairy products, fasted almost daily, slept very little and almost always on the bare ground. He died at Lyons on 2 April 1597 at the age of ninety-one, of which twenty-four were spent in the service of the Church. He was beatified in 1513 and six years later canonized by Leo X, who declared that by the power of God he had been raised up to illuminate, as a mystical torch, the darkness of his century (bull of canonization).

His cult spread throughout the world; many cities and some regions have chosen him as their patron. Pius XII proclaimed him in 1943 patron of Italian seafarers. He is invoked to obtain children. His feast is on 4 April.

Works: besides the Monastic Rules, many of his letters are preserved. The most complete collection, though containing not a few spurious ones, is by F. Preste, Centuria di lettere di S. F. di P., Rome 1665.

Iconography. – Of St. F. of S. it may be asserted that his true likeness is known, handed down by some very ancient portraits. The first was commissioned by King Ferrante in 1483 when the Saint was his guest in Naples: it is preserved in the conventual church, formerly of the Minims, at Montalto Uffugo (Cosenza); however, it seems not to be the original but a very ancient copy. Originals, on the other hand, are two paintings in Rome, one by an unknown artist at the Trinità dei Monti, the other at S. Andrea delle Fratte by Paris Nogari (1535-1600). The most authentic portrait is by the painter to Louis XI of France, J. Bourdichon, who was a friend of the Saint. The original was sent to Leo X by Francis I on the occasion of the canonization, and was still in the Vatican in the time of Clement XI. Many reproductions of it exist. All these portraits give an identical physiognomy of the Saint, who is depicted with thick eyebrows, aquiline nose, long beard. Most often leaning on a staff, he frequently bears the characteristic emblem: *Caritas*, radiant.

Meanwhile, in the summer of 1597, F. had been elected coadjutor bishop of Geneva; at the end of 1598 he was sent on diocesan business to Rome, where he remained from January to April 1599, also triumphantly passing the canonical examination for the episcopate in the presence of Clement VIII and Bellarmine. Returning to Annecy, for another two years he devoted himself chiefly to consolidating the religious state of the Chablais. In 1602 he was sent by his bishop to Paris to negotiate the re-establishment of Catholic parishes in the country of Gex, which had passed from Genevan rule to French sovereignty. During this stay, which lasted eight months, he met several great religious souls, in particular frequenting the circle of Madame Acarie, the future Marie de l’Incarnation, of whom he became the confessor. He preached before the court and King Henry IV, as well as in numerous churches and monasteries. Among the noble and cultured society of Paris, he was able to discern the aspirations of many souls, of whom he would become an unparalleled master of the spiritual life, with his teaching on the possibility of practicing a devout life even in the world.

Departing again for Annecy at the end of September 1602, he learned during the journey of the death of his bishop; he succeeded him in the see of Geneva, being consecrated on 8 Dec. and making his entry into Annecy on the 14th. The diocese, made up of several provinces, partly under the sovereignty of the Duke of Savoy and partly under that of France (Bugey and Gex), was vast and desolated by recent religious innovations. Threats and reprisals against Catholics were exercised by the nearby Calvinist Geneva, whose bishop now bore only the title. Added to these were the ruins accumulated by wars and religious hatred, the indigence of the people, and the poverty of the clergy. F., who had donated his patrimony and disposed only of the meagre revenues of the diocese, lived in a narrow house with only a few family members.

He devoted particular care to the formation of the clergy and the instruction of the people, to whom he preached incessantly and personally conducted Sunday catechisms. He reorganized the diocese, reconstituting numerous parishes, convening annual synods, and carrying out the pastoral visitation even of the most rugged places. Frequently called to preach elsewhere, during the Lenten season held in Dijon in 1604 he met the Baroness Jeanne Françoise Frémiot de Chantal, recently widowed, with whom in 1610 he would found the Order of the Visitation. Meanwhile, he attended to her preparation through spiritual direction, largely exercised through correspondence.

He returned to Paris on the occasion of marriage negotiations between the Prince of Piedmont and Christine of France, sister of Louis XIII; and there he resided from October 1618 to September 1619, in the retinue of the Prince-Cardinal of Savoy, much sought after for his preaching (during that period he delivered no fewer than 365 discourses) and for his spiritual guidance. Venerated by eminent figures—among many, St. Vincent de Paul and Mother Angélique Arnauld, Abbess of Port-Royal—he refused, as he had in his previous stay, substantial benefices and the curacy of Paris, offered to keep him in France. Returning to his diocese, in 1620 he obtained that his brother Jean François be elected his coadjutor with the title of Bishop of Chalcedon. In November 1622, though recently recovered from a serious illness, he received orders from the Duke of Savoy to accompany him on his journey to France, where the duke intended to visit Louis XIII. He departed from Annecy, clearly foreseeing his approaching death, after dictating his will and taking leave of all. He first went to Avignon, where the sovereigns were met, and then accompanied the two courts together to Lyon, where he spent his last month. On December 11 he conferred for the last time with Mother de Chantal. On the 27th, in the afternoon, he was struck by apoplexy and died on the 28th, about eight in the morning.

The body was solemnly transferred in January 1623 to Annecy and buried in the church of the Visitation. St. Francis de Sales was beatified on December 28, 1661, and canonized on April 19, 1665; declared a Doctor of the Church on July 7, 1877. Pius XI named him patron of Catholic journalists and writers (encyclical Rerum omnium, January 21, 1923). His feast is celebrated on January 29. N. Vian.

II. Doctrine

In the history of French literature, St. Francis de Sales occupies a primary place for his prose so rich in images, comparisons, and allegories, so luminous with serene joy, so fresh and at the same time refined in its sweetness and stylistic preciosity. St. Francis de Sales was not a “writer” in the usual sense of the word: almost all his vast literary activity arose incidentally as written defenses of his marvelous work as a refined and persuasive preacher. Thus the Controverses, composed during his mission in Chablais, were nothing more than broadsheets affixed in public squares and along streets; yet they are of no small importance for the conceptual determination of the “notes” of the Church. In the face of Protestant theory, he reaffirms the unity, holiness, and catholicity of the Church, and in recognition of the truth of the Catholic creed he sets forth the rules of application: beyond natural reason, miracles, Sacred Scripture, apostolic tradition, the Fathers, the Councils, and the Pope—whom he does not hesitate to call and confirm as infallible in matters of truth. Also the Sermons (of extreme clarity), the Lettre sur la prédication, his various pamphlets, his extraordinarily rich correspondence, and even the Vrays entretiens spirituels (spiritual colloquies held by St. Francis with the Daughters of the Visitation and transcribed by them) and the Défense de l’étendard de la Sainte-Croix.

The Salesian optimism is decisively Christocentric: immense, indeed infinite, are the salvific means that man has inherited from the death of Jesus. Hence salvation is open to any social condition (provided, of course, that it be well lived). As has been rightly noted, the revolutionary novelty of the Saint was to open the highest exercises of the contemplative religious life even to those who live in the world: to those who live in domestic life or in public employments is given the possibility of sanctification, indeed of a perfect devout life, which does not content itself with ordinary honesty but surpasses it, striving for the same holiness, for the perfection of charity. All are granted sanctification while living in the world, without, however, adopting “acume humeur mondaine.” The soul, as he wrote on the feast of St. Mary Magdalene in 1609 in the preface to the Introduction à la vie dévote, can find the fountains of sweet piety amid the bitter waves of this age. Hence each state of life must practice certain specific virtues: different are the virtues of a priest, different those of a prince or a soldier, and still different those of a wife or a widow. All must possess all the virtues, but each must excel in those proper to his or her way of life. Yet all must be familiar with the Sacrament of Penance, hatred of mortal sin, detachment from venial sin and from useless or dangerous things, control of the will, simple and affectionate action, and above all frequent Communion (and daily when there is suitable disposition): it, like the antidote of Mithridates which so strengthened his own body that it prevented true poisoning when he was a prisoner of the Romans and attempted suicide, is the sure antidote against the poisoning of sin and every evil affection (the comparison is, of course, the Saint’s) and was part of his demonstrative method, as in so many other comparisons. Prayer is not merely a means but an end to which all other practices of the interior life are subordinate; prayer (which is love itself) is a voluntary adherence to the mystery of sanctifying grace (Bremond).

S. Francis de Sales, starting from a view of life with a distinctly ascetic flavor (notably the deposit of Ignatian spiritual exercises), initially harbored a certain suspicion toward mystical illuminations. Later, around 1610 while working on *The Treatise on the Love of God*, he felt the need to delve deeper into the problem of mystical prayer. It was the Visitandines, whom he directed, who influenced him on this fundamental aspect of the soul’s life. Naturally, his response came from his own interior journey: from meditation on the Spanish and Italian mystics (from St. Teresa back to St. Catherine of Genoa, including various mystics from the Low Countries). He had begun speaking of Louis of Granada in 1604; St. Teresa initially interested him little on a mystical level. The depth of his spiritual evolution can be placed around 1604 when he met St. Jane Frances de Chantal in Dijon, though it seems he did not depart from the ordinary path of devotion until 1610 (A. Lujumaj).

St. Francis de Sales came to accept the entire mystical scale, including the prayer of quiet. In this latter stage, for the Saint, the will operates with a simple resting in the divine will: without any other desire than to remain under the divine gaze as it pleases God Himself. This quietude is devoid of any self-interest; the powers of the soul feel no satisfaction there, nor does the will, except in the joy of having no joy for the sake of the divine will. The highest rung of ecstasy is that of having no will in one’s own satisfaction but in God’s, of having no satisfaction in one’s own will but in God’s. It is well known that toward the end of the 17th century, during the Quietist controversy, these propositions of St. Francis de Sales were judged to be Quietist (e.g., by Bossuet); yet in reality, St. Francis de Sales was never a Quietist precisely because he never rejected the virtues of hope and charity at any stage of the mystical life.

St. Francis de Sales was accused (even by Bossuet) of having written that natural love of God arrives by itself at supernatural love; but

in reality, for St. Francis de Sales, the natural propensity toward the love of God is not an affection for loving God as such, precisely because the soul disposes itself to be justified only negatively, rejecting the obstacles that block its path and placing the person in the position where he may be *tout gratuitement* justified by grace (Pernin). It must not be forgotten, however, that in the problem of predestination, Francis was a Molinist and believed that it proceeds from God *post praesens merita* (in this regard, on 28 August 1618, he rejoiced with Lessius because the latter upheld the theory of election to glory based on the foreseen merits—a theory, he said, confirmed by antiquity, the Church, and the authority of Holy Scripture, and one that is most worthy of divine mercy and goodness: cf. on this point X.-M. Le Bachelet, *Prédestination et grâce efficace*, II, Louvain 1931, pp. 321ff.).

The doctrinal work of the Saint is not only a milestone in the history of Christian spirituality but also in the specific field of dogmatic-mystical theology. His theology of love, his loving fear that rejects the terror of God, his declared ability to accept suffering without anger only in the love of Christ, and his conscious favor toward the Scotist tendency on the problem of the Incarnation (the Word would have become incarnate even if man had not sinned) restored to the modern world, shaken by the rigid and absurd Calvinist theology, the gentle and operative vision of feeling oneself a child rather than a slave of God.

I. ICONOGRAPHY

The images of the Saint derive largely from his portraits, painted during his lifetime, among which the one dated 1618, preserved in the Monastery of the Visitation in Turin, is particularly fine. He is almost always depicted without a mitre. As an attribute, he sometimes holds a heart encircled by a crown of thorns. Thus he was painted by Carlo Maratta in the church of the Oratory in Forlì.