Today is the memorial of St. Francis de Sales, truly one of my favorite saints. Bishop of Geneva at a time during which the Calvinists were firmly in control, he ministered to his flock nonetheless, sometimes by stealth. A greatly-admired preacher and spiritual director for religious and lay, alike, but particularly the laity. A man who could clearly see the gifts in all, no matter what their state in life, no matter what their gender – he was particularly close friends with St. Jane de Chantal, and the fruit of their friendship is some remarkable letters, as well as a religious community. He’s the patron saint of writers!<\/p>\n
When God the Creator made all things, he commanded the plants to bring forth fruit each according to its own kind; he has likewise commanded Christians, who are the living plants of his Church, to bring forth the fruits of devotion, each one in accord with his character, his station and his calling.
\nI say that devotion must be practised in different ways by the nobleman and by the working man, by the servant and by the prince, by the widow, by the unmarried girl and by the married woman. But even this distinction is not sufficient; for the practice of devotion must be adapted to the strength, to the occupation and to the duties of each one in particular.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
So many people are struggling with their faith these days. The scandals and failures of the institution threaten to destroy their trust. What to believe? Where is Christ to be found in all of this?<\/p>\n
The same places He always has, of course: in the complex beauty of the world he’s made, in the midst of your own life, in your encounters with him through prayer, in the Scriptures, in the sacramental and devotional life of the Church, in the breadth and width of the mystery of Tradition. <\/p>\n
The actions of church employees, hierarchs, and minions tell us much, mostly about human nature, truth be told, but as a whole, they tell us nothing about the core of our faith, except that some people live it out and some people don’t, and some people use it as a cover for evil. They tell us that reform is always<\/strong> needed, at some level, all the time, and that we can never get complacent. Same story. Same awful mysterious story, but not a new one. <\/p>\nIf you focus on the institution – that is, the hierarchy or even parish staff as your framework for thinking about faith, as your primary touchpoint with your faith, you are setting yourself up for despair. Think about this: imagine that you<\/strong> were a bishop. Even if you were a good one, would you want people using your life and decisions as the basis for their faith? Of course not, and the better bishop you were, in fact, the more you would turn people away from yourself and to Christ.<\/p>\nWhich is, of course, exactly what St. Francis de Sales – a bishop – did.<\/p>\n
If you haven’t already, consider reading The Introduction to the Devout Life.<\/a>. It’s wonderful, and an invaluable companion for those serious about deepening their relationship with Christ.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Today is the memorial of St. Francis de Sales, truly one of my favorite saints. Bishop of Geneva at a time during which the Calvinists were firmly in control, he ministered to his flock nonetheless, sometimes by stealth. A greatly-admired preacher and spiritual director for religious and lay, alike, but particularly the laity. A man…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n
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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8081\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}